Chapter Text
There is a pivotal moment in life when the path ahead becomes clear as day. When all the puzzle pieces making up life thus far fall perfectly into place and the image they show is your destiny. A moment that proves every risk, every sacrifice, and every cut and mended tie wasn’t made in vain. That they were worth it.
And this moment could happen at any time on one’s journey. It could boil down to one decision. Of course, that’s a pivotal moment in it’s most simple form. But for me, well, it’s been anything but simple.
No, this has been a long time coming. And now standing at the gates of U.A. High, the most prestigious school of heroics in Japan, the alma matar of the best of the best heroes, the path I know that will lead me to my destiny, each decision leading to this one comes flooding back.
How did I, Kasumi Kushieda, daughter of Masato Kushieda— also known as “hater of all things related to quirks”— end up here, on the steps of U.A.?
It all started when I was five years old.
I grew up in Ishizawa, a small rural village in Japan. And when I say ‘rural’, I mean it takes approximately three buses and a train to get to the closest city. But aside from being your average small town, this one has one defining feature. It’s an Anti-Quirk community.
As in, everyone hates anything and everything to do with the special abilities that began showing up in people so many years ago. The community actively chooses to live apart from quirks, to live like they did in the olden days where police had the power to be the hero’s. Where it’s children blended into the cookie-cut societal roles they were meant to. No standing out in a crowd. No uniqueness. And surely no possessing inhuman abilities.
And for someone with a quirk, one can only begin to imagine how fun it was to grow up there.
And here I am, spilling the tea. It wasn’t fun.
Luckily I was gifted with a quirk that alters nothing about my physical appearance. Despite having lavender hair, but that’s not really the quirks fault, just genetics. My dad has the same hair color, only a darker shade, and so did his father before him and grandfather too. And my father’s family is as quirkless as they come. I’d swear they make up the entire twenty percent of the quirkless population, if I didn’t actually live in a town housing the majority of them.
So how was it growing up with a quirk in a town that resents them? Let’s just say bullying was at an all time high. Leave it to the sheltered country kids to pick on the one thing thought of as “abnormal”. I imagine that hiding an uncontrolled quirk as a child would be difficult for any kid. And I use “imagine” in the most literal sense, since I didn’t actually know anybody with one.
And when you’re in your kindergarten class and suddenly you phase right through your chair, and the seat is eye level, going through your permeable head, It’s hard to brush that off as an odd case of the flu. Trust me, my dad tried.
Let’s just say, despite his standing in the academic hierarchy as a top history teacher, this incident wasn’t brushed under the rug. But we weren’t kicked out of the town. No, instead they went with a lighter punishment, which forbade me from using my quirk and would eventually send me into a spiraling identity crisis. Public school at it’s finest.
So how do other kids react when seated in class next to the weird outcast girl who phased through a chair? Oh, they get mean. And me, being the bright-eyed, purple-haired weirdo, who was secretly waiting for her Sailor Moon debut with her cool ass powers, was a shockingly easy target.
The name calling was the best. I’d like to say these kids got creative, but the best they even came up with was “Ghost”. “Spooks” was an occasional moniker and an odd favorite of mine, mostly used by the kids who didn’t actually hold a grudge and or hate me, but definitely weren’t brave enough to not make fun of the outcast.
It was lonely to say the least. The only friend I had was a mangy stray cat, who was missing a deep “V” out of her right ear. I lovingly named her Veeta — I never said I was very creative either. Small town problems.
But don’t worry, seeing how the kids at school treated me, my dad decided that recreational sports would be a sure fired way to make friends. Sadly, “team” sports weren’t my thing. But solo sports? Oh baby, I threw every ounce of pent up frustration I had into perfecting my craft.
Gymnastics was the first winner and I’ve been competing ever since. Cross Country Track came soon after, but never grew to “golden child” status in my eyes. Which brings me to the patchy, dirt road beginnings of the path leading me to U.A..
Gymnastics wasn’t the kind of sport for a small town. Sure you could compete with other small towns, but the cities were where the big leagues played. Every second aside from school and general human maintenance was dedicated to the sport. I didn’t have any friends aside from Veeta, so throwing myself so completely into a sport was the only way to distract myself from the ever looming loneliness. I advanced quickly. My dad had no other choice but to bring me to competitions in the city. His plan to distract me from my ‘persona non grata’ status with my classmates and help suppress any desire to explore my quirk was working. He didn't have any other option but to further my athletic career.
One of my early competitions was in Tokyo. I remember the day clearly, all the way back to biting the inside of my bottom lip in order to focus on stopping my quirk from moving past my finger tips because my nerves were particularly high. I was nine and was to do an advanced rhythmic rope routine that I only just learned, which the older girls at my gym couldn’t even master the moves to. And it wasn’t for lack of confidence. I could still hit every step in the routine today, but first performance jitters were normal. That, and I had a soul crushing need to hold my father’s approval.
Perform perfect gymnastics routines. Be a straight A student. Never use the demon quirk residing inside of me. It was a carefree childhood.
Anyway, just as the performer ahead of me had finished her routine and began her exit to the wrong side of the stage, a large blast shattered the walls of the center. This round rock form had exploded through the wall with a force that threw me and my other competitors to the ground.
When I got my wits back, I saw the rock form begin to shake. No. Uncurl. The rock was no longer round but formed like some kind of armadillo-man hybrid. A crazy loud, guttural sound escaped it’s lips, and soon it was bashing away at the security team from the competition. I was scared senseless. I had never seen anything so terrifying.
Most of the girls strewn about the ground with me had the good sense to get to their feet and run to the safety of their parents arms, leaving me and the previous performer lying helpless in fear on the spring floor. Spying us, two weakling children that could easily be used as collateral, lying out in the open, the armadillo creature rolled into a ball and bashed it’s way through the remaining security and snatched the girl in front of me before I even realized he moved.
And speaking of things that moved before I could even notice, I was up and running at the monster with a body full of adrenaline. I can’t fully say what I was thinking in that moment, but my body couldn’t just sit by and watch that helpless girl sobbing in the villains clutches. How could I let that girl suffer in the villains clutches, when it should have been me? She would have been far away from him if she exited on the correct side of the tape marked stage. Performance jitters can get anyone.
I reached them, and as the armadillo man swung his arm to back hand me, I used my quirk and glided right through. That was the first day I used my quirk on a human, but not exactly how one would think. I learned something else about my quirk that day. Not only could I, myself, move through things, but I could make that happen to something else with a touch of my hand and enough focus.
I grabbed that girls arm and she fell right through the villains grip. Though the second her feet hit the floor she took off in the direction of the fleeing crowd. Me? Yeah, I didn’t move. I was too shocked by the fact that one: I used my quirk in public. Two: my abrupt actions and lack of planning actually worked. And Three: There was a newfound depth to my quirk and a thirst for discovery accompanying it.
And in my mind blowing revelations I didn’t notice the wrinkly, clawed hand until it was around me. I tried and failed to use my quirk a second time, having no energy left from pulling out a new move a few seconds earlier. People’s screams echoed off the gym walls like sirens off of skyscrapers. My captor growled and bellowed threats on my life if he couldn’t leave peacefully. Security guards and police could do nothing but stay on the defensive while I remained in the villain’s possession.
As far as crime went in my town, there were robberies here and there. Maybe a missing person, but it was usually only because they missed either a train or bus home, and wound up found the next day making breakfast in their kitchen.
And in my puny child brain, if security or police couldn’t handle this monster, then what on earth could?
The answer? Easy.
Time passing is a hazy fog in the memory, but soon, a powerful gust blew through the crumbly hole marring the convention center’s wall, and with it a muscular man in a red and blue body suit, with— to my tiny human brain— long, golden rabbit ears, and a smile that looked like a sparkling string of pearls. And who did I associate golden rabbit ears with? None other than my lord and savior, Sailor Moon. The only difference, this golden bunny man was real.
“There is no need to worry, Because I Am Here!” the rabbit in leotard bellowed, in such a manly voice, it put my own dad’s to shame.
And with another whoosh, he was across the room delivering a cracking blow to the armadillo man’s protective shell, sending the creature hurdling through the air, and removing me from it’s clawed grasp. And to everyone in the city, that may have been an everyday occurrence, something to be expected from the number one hero. But to me, he was a savior.
And to my dad, he was the absolute worst thing to ever happen to him. Which is dumb, because should you really hate the man who returned your daughter back to you safe and sound without so much as a scratch? The answer is ‘No’, but apparently, that isn’t how dad brain’s work. Or at least my dad’s brain.
Of course, on the long trip home I was given a ranting lecture of why quirks are a bad thing and that I am expected to never use mine again, and property damage, and the economy, and things that were way over my head at that age. But nothing he could have said would have been able to dull the awed sparkle in my eye, for the words my golden hero said to me, were enough to ignite the flame within me.
“That was a very brave move, saving that little girl. With a selflessness like that inside you, you could make a great hero.”
Yeah. Me. I could make a great hero. The outcast with a ghost quirk. I could be my own Sailor Scout.
After that day the research began. The town library wasn’t stocked with anything relating to quirks, but I didn’t need books. The internet gave me all I needed. It opened up a new world to me; A world where quirks weren’t only accepted, but where they were praised. A world where a golden bunny man held a household name. All Might. Also known as my new hero. (Sorry Sailor Moon, but you didn’t rescue me from a real bad guy, only the ones residing in my imagination.)
In an interview with All Might I found online, he said “Anyone can be a hero,” and I’d be damned if I was going to be anything but.
Days went on, gymnastics practices seemed to last longer than normal, homework took an eternity. Dinner with my father grew quiet, and the clock on the wall in the dining room ticked slower with each minute that passed. Because when my father went to bed, my life could start.
Using my quirk in Ishizawa may have been forbidden, but that was only if I got caught. And that may not sound very Hero-y, but I had to work with what I had if my dream was going to come true.
Every night in my room, illuminated by a single flashlight, I practiced using my quirk. It started out lightly, just channeling my quirk. It turned out that using my quirk was a heck of a lot easy to do than repress it. Holding out hands until they gained a misty look about them, until I could see the wall of my bedroom faintly through the translucent shape of the extremities.
Then came the phasing through things. It was truly like I was a ghost, just minus the invisibly and flying. So maybe not like a ghost at all, but rather a permeable membrane. I could only manage thin objects in the beginning, but soon I was able to hold the form for longer. Making it through walls, I’d do laps around my bedroom hitting every object I could.
And that isn’t even the most interesting part. See, I was more like a ghost than I thought. For my quirk wasn’t just able to make me intangible. No, that was just the segway, the transitional ability needed for the full potential of my quirk,
Remember Veeta? Well, she snuck in one night and in my training I paused to give her a scratch on the head. And when my hand was in contact with her I had a thought. Could I go through another living thing?
The answer? Yes and no.
I can fully ghost through someone, but that’s not all. You see, my quirk? Turns out, is Possession.
And yes, my first time Possessing anything was with a cat. No one can even imagine how scary that is. In fact, once I was able to release my hold on Veeta, I didn’t dare use my quirk on any living thing for a few months. But eventually curiosity always wins over.
When I possess something, number one, I need to have one or both of my hands in contact with that person. Full, tangible hands. Once in contact, if I activate the intangible part of my quirk, I am able to phase into my victim’s body, if I so choose. Once inside, I have full control of their psyche. I can see their thoughts (only ones they are actively thinking about while I’m taking over their body), I can control their movements, and—what I later learned— I can control their quirks. I would like to thank Minako Takahashi, a fellow gymnast who I asked if I could use my quirk on in the girls bathroom at a competition in Shibuya. She could lightly control the direction of running water, and once she was in my possession, I learned that so could I.
Hello, my name is Spooks and I’m here to steal your soul. Just kidding. But maybe?
So, after years of training in secret, getting my body into peak gymnast condition, and developing a toughened mindset, I finally plucked up the courage to sign up for U.A.’s Entrance Exam.
This will be my defining moment.
Will I have what it takes to be a potential hero? Or will I go home with my tail between my legs? Whichever the outcome, I know it’s a risk I’m willing to take. My pivotal moment.
Being a Hero is my destiny!