Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Izumi's POV

Everything feels so...surreal. Looking back, I can't believe I was that little, ignorant little girl all those years ago. Now? I'm so... different from her. I was meek, always shying away, always scared and was so, so naïve, always believing everything was going to be fine. It did, it definitely did, but not in a way my younger self imagined with her rose-tinted glasses. Bullying was a normal thing I experienced as a kid, just because I was ,Quirkless, different, and it just got worse throughout the years and I just hoped that the word would just grant me a Quirk.

Funny how that went, huh? Just when I got confident with being Quirkless, All Might comes in promises me a Quirk of my own. Of course, I was apprehensive at that, because would you really believe that a Quirk can be just given to you? Despite that, I decided to humor the #1 Pro Hero since how could I not? Not only is he an old idol of mine, but he's one of the best Heroes that existed. And, in case, All Might was secretly a villain posing as a hero, I had my pepper spray, quirk-cancelling cuffs (stolen from a police.), and my phone's location always open and easy for my mom to find.

That was where a grueling 10 months of physical training began. I was already fit before All Might decided to take me under his wing since I needed to be whenever I needed to beat up some quirkists or escape the more unsavory type of people, but hauling tons of trash was an effort in of itself. During my early bulking up process (I needed to have a sturdy body to handle the strain of One For All, so he decided to get me to clean Dagobah Beach.), with All Might's, Toshinori-sensei's, complete lack of teaching experience, I decided to sign up for martial art lessons, Krav Maga to be exact, since it was one of the martial arts that would actually be useful in a real life scenario, which I had been putting off because I did not have motivation before to dedicate myself to it, content with the fighting experiences I received from the streets.

Of course, despite Toshinori-sensei being able to act as my guardian, I still felt the need to tell this to my mom, because she was not only my mom, but my best friends. And that's where mom met Yagi Toshinori, All Might's secretary. Though my mom was my best friend, some secrets needed to stay secrets, so our cover story was that All Might had decided to take me under his wing since he saw me saving a bunch of kids from a bunch of delinquents and felt that I could become a Hero under his care.

Continuing on, other than cleaning the beach and Krav Maga, school was there. At the end of junior high school, once I had gotten enough evidence about my teacher's blatantly ignoring my health, encouraging bullying and quirkism, and my schoolmates acts of bullying, I had given all these to the police after graduation, effectively shutting down the school, getting the majority of the teachers some jail time and their licenses being revoked, while many of the kids were sent to counseling and were given marks in their records, causing their chances in being accepted in Hero Academies to lessen. Bakugo Katsuki, being one of my major bullies and had done far more than simple name calling and shoving me around, was being watched by authorities and had needed some major counseling, especially since he started spouting about how useless I was and how the "extra's" shouldn't be touching him. I received an apology from his mother a few days later, promising she'll have her son make it up to me somehow, and since she was my mom's best friend, I decided to not let her have to deal with the guilt of having such demon for a kid and let her have her peace.

Though, now that the closest school to our place was shut down for a while and mom, who had simultaneously berated me and fussed over me for not letting her know what I was going through at school, had decided to transfer me to a different school.

Seiai High School was a private all-girls school nearly an hour away from home, but 10 minutes by train, so mom decided to have me continue my education there. Despite the students being initially put off by me due to my quirklessness, I eventually gained friends and I grew to love it there. Originally, I had decided to continue my college education in Seiai Academy in its General Education course, since my place was ensured since I was a student of Seiai High School and was going for the Gen Ed course instead of the Hero courses, which required the students to go through a different entrance exam. Of course, that plan was now gone since All Might was "training" me and I now had a great reason to be a Hero, to say "Fuck you!" to all those people who thought I couldn't be one, a Hero out of spite. It honestly would have been more impactful if I became a Hero while Quirkless, but I had no delusions I could survive against people that could control the air and whatnot. Though, I hope my friends wouldn't be too bitter with me leaving for U.A., and I hope that my reason for going to a different Hero Academy, being scouted by All Might, would help them understand, since U.A. was his Alma Mater.

Present

And now, 8 and a half months after our first encounter, All Might, in his Buff Form, was standing in front of me, tall and awe-inspiring. Beside him was a reflective piece of sheet metal found in the trash pile and in his hand was a picture of me 8 months ago. It was surreal, how similar yet different the picture looked from the one in front of me. My face was sharper, fat from my cheeks gone, my hair was longer, almost reaching my ass, and I was definitely more muscular than I was before all this. Replacing my four-pack was a sexy six-pack abs, my curves being curvier, and I definitely grew taller, going from short to average height.

"Marvel at yourself young Midoriya, for this is the result of all your dedication, your hard work, your spite, as you have said before. This transformation of yours is something you should be proud of, young Midoriya!" As Toshinori-sensei said, I allowed myself to feel prideful with my body. "And this won't be your only transformation."

Knowing what Toshinori-sensei meant, I stood straighter, anticipation filling my being. Then, in one swift movement, Toshinori-sensei plucked a hair out from his head and said, "Eat this!"

.............

"I knew it! You are a pervert!" Without much thought, I took out the pepper spray from my fanny pack and sprayed.

I clearly underestimated All Might's reaction speed, because just as I pressed on the pepper spray, he was a good distance away, also making it so that my backup plan to taze him was out.

"Wu-WAITWAITWAIT!!! YOUNG MIDORIYA, FORGIVE ME!!! I DID NOT MEAN MY WORDS TO MEAN LIKE THAT!!! FO-FOR ME TO GIVE MY QUIRK TO YOU, IT IS RE-REQUIRED FOR ME TO SHARE MY DNA TO YOU!!! FORGIVE ME!!! I DID NOT MEAN FOR IT TO SOUND WEIRD!!!"

...........

After the misunderstanding was cleared up, 'Damn you All Might.', I eyed the strand of hair apprehensively. "Are you sure this will work?" I asked Toshinori-sensei, who was in his Deflated Form.

Shrugging his shoulders, Toshinori-sensei answered, "I had the same reaction when my sensei made me eat her hair, but it worked nonetheless."

Taking his word for it, I threw caution to the wind and downed the strand of hair with two cups of water, wanting to make sure it wouldn't remain in my mouth for more than just a few seconds. After a few minutes of silence, I glared at All Might, taser in hand. Fueled with dread, All Might began to quickly explain, "Ah! Th-the Quirk would need some time to assimilate with your body! Bu-but it would only for a while! You should start feeling it in a bit! A-and put that ta-taser away!"

Huffing, I ignored Toshinori-sensei's plea and still kept my taser trained on him, but I did decide to calm down. However, after a few minutes of anticipation, I started to feel something. Something different was coursing through my veins, and I meant that literally when said veins began to glow red and white as green lightning surrounded my arms.

"Ahah! Thank Kami! I thought you were going to tase me for a second there!"

Ignoring the man, I began to observe this...quirk of mine, fascinated by how weird it looked and marveling at how powerful I felt. Though, I do feel a strain in my whole body, but it was currently ignorable. However, as I marveled at the feeling of having a Quirk, a voice, different from my own, echoed in my head as words appeared in front of me!

"Eh?"

"Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!?"

Yesterday was...hectic, to say the least. The sudden...awakening(?) of my Quirk had surprised us all. Me, especially, was doubly surprised, because I never expected to have two Quirks all of the sudden. After the initial shock at the beach, Toshinori-sensei had been kind enough to set me up with a Quirk Doctor as fast as he could and had quickly drove me to my house so that we could tell this discovery to my mom, afterwards, despite us having to wait a few hours, the Quirk Doctor had said that, "You're Quirk, my dear, is quite unique. For it to need fourteen years to appear, to awaken...despite Quirks being with us for two centuries, they are still a mystery. You're case is something we have never heard of! If you could, we would appreciate you giving us updates about it since, once again, a Quirk taking fourteen years to awaken has never been heard of!", and after that we had dinner out, mom letting Toshinori-sensei pay for us since he was super rich and mom only relenting to it since they were close friends at this point.

'My Quirk seems to be sentient, a rarity. Quirks with forms of sentience was not unheard of, but it was rare. However, how far does its sentience reach? Is it self-conscious? Is it intelligent? Is it aware of what it is? What else can my quirk do?' Mentally jotting down this piece of information, I decided to write this down later. I plan to share some of my findings regarding my Quirk, simply for the sake of future research, but I don't plan to reveal all of it, since I don't want much information about it being publicized. And, yeah, breakfast sounds good right about now.

Rolling off my bed and catching myself before my face hits the floor, I then began my part of my morning routine. Usually, I would have woken up at 4, allowing me an hour to jog around the neighborhood, and an hour more for different kinds of exercise, depending on what day it was (today was supposed to be leg day.), before taking a bath and eating. Since, like I said, yesterday was pretty hectic, I was more tired than usual so I woke up late and I was still tired, so I opted to just take a bath. Since I slept in nothing, all I needed to do was to flatten my sheets and bring clothes with me to the bathroom. Then, after taking appropriate clothes meant for a day of relaxation (Toshinori-sensei said I needed one, saying I could take some time to get used with my quirks before actually using them.), a shirt much too big for me and short-shorts and underwear of course, I made my way to the bathroom. However, as I passed by my mirror, I stopped, catching myself in the mirror. It really shouldn't be surprising, seeing my own reflection. Heck, I've even posed in front of the mirror multiple times this past month alone...but, remembering what Toshinori-sensei said, seeing myself now, remembering how all this started, my smile widened just a tad bit.

It was the sudden feminine, yet mechanical voice that had me looking at the floating holographic rectangle(?) in front me. Honestly, with how peaceful time has passed, a simple breakfast with mom with no problems popping up, I had actually forgotten about my quirk greeting me earlier. Still, now that I was stuck in an awkward position, not knowing how to respond to my quirk, my brain decided to go for the stupid approach and had caused me to respond with a lame, high-pitched "He-Ey~!". Kami that was embarrassing.

A moment passed, my brain drawing blanks, before it went into overdrive. Questions upon questions filled my brain, most of it centering the question, "Does a Quirk know itself?". Quirks, despite being around for two centuries, the majority of the population having one, was still relatively an unknown. If I remember correctly, Quirks have started to get stronger as generations pass, the quirks having been combination from the parents, which in turn would combine and mix to the next generation, then would be tempered and grow strong, then it would be combined with a different quirk, the process repeating itself constantly. However, a sentient quirk had never shown signs of this much of awareness of itself, if its words were anything to go by. A sentient quirk, at best, would only know as much as the person who has it. Then, taking deep breaths, I slowly calmed down.

'Dang, it's been a long time since I've ranted a storm.' It was probably a genetic thing, my sudden ranting sprees, since I have seen mom the same thing many times before, mostly when it came to me or bills, but it creeped people out and although I didn't give two-fucks about what they thought about me, it was a bit of a problem since I would stop everything I was doing and ignore everything else when I started to rant and mumble, so I stopped. Though, going back on topic, I regarded the floating hologram(?) with a cautious look before throwing caution to the wind once more and blurting out, "Yes."

Hearing the former, I had simply nodded along. However, when it(?) began counting down, panic came over me. "Wait! Wh-what did you ju-"

"-st say? Can't we ju-"

One moment I was in the living room, looking at the holographic screen, the next, I was in a purple...room?. Understandably, panic began to creep in. My heart was beating so fast that it felt like it would rip itself out of my chest, my breathing had also started to get harder. However, despite the fear, I bit into my tongue, relying on the pain to keep me grounded. I was aiming to be a Hero for Kami's sake! Though, all the fear, the anxiety, it all was replaced with relief when a screen appeared in front of me, much larger than the one that appeared in front of me from earlier. It took me all of my all to not facepalm since I overreacted so much. I nearly had a heart attack! However, as if reading my mind, a smaller screen appeared in front of the big one as the same feminine, yet robotic reverberated in the room.

Hearing this, I was about to once again rant about questions pertaining my Quirks, but somehow I was able to stop myself from doing so. In the end, after sitting down on the floor and performing some breathing exercises, I finally felt like I had a clear head, prompting me to calmly ask questions needed to be answered. Clearing my throat, I asked my...quirk, "Where are we?"

'The answer did not help at all, but calm breaths, Izumi. Calm breathes.' I had more questions I wanted to ask, like how we got here, why was this place so bare if this was a room?, if my quirk was actually a person, which would answer the intelligence and whatnot. However, I opted to ask, "And why exactly are we here?"

'Okay, Izumi. Don't freak out. Your recently awakened quirk just sent you to another dimension where time is stagnant outside of it. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all!' Clearing my throat, I continued with my questions. "Are...you my Quirk?" I asked with a wince, hoping I wasn't rude or caused a problem with my question.

Encouraged by my curiosity and hidden need to know about Quirks and everything related to it, I began to eagerly nod for it(?) to continue.

The question confused me, but I nodded "Yes." nonetheless.

Thinking deeply, I rifled through my memories about this "The Gamer" fanfiction as I was an avid reader of fanfiction and have written some myself, but ultimately, I came up blank, prompting me to shake my head.

While they stewed a bit, I decided to take this time to summarize what I found out so far. Firstly, this quirk of mine was a complete mystery still, which will hopefully be answered later, with the ability to send me to a sub-dimension where time was weird. Secondly, this "person" was definitely part of my quirk, Third, my quirk didn't know everything about me since it had asked questions about what I did and did not know and was apparently baffled.

I wasn't actually an avid-gamer, having stopped playing video games when I was kid since most video games were centered around heroes and it was a painful reminder to my young self, but I nodded as I was familiar with RPGs since I recently started playing games at the insistence of my friends since I would eventually leave them for U.A. and we needed a way to bond together, our future schedules being a factor in that.

"Eh?"

With the revelation that my awakened Quirk essentially made me an RPG character, everything else had definitely gotten better. In front of me was the big screen from earlier, which was actually my Status Window, and if it weren't for the other window above it, I would have been majorly confused with everything. However, before I could talk more about my status, let's talk about what Elira, my "Maiden", as she puts it, revealed that "The Gamer System" wasn't actually a Quirk, but is rather a power certain individuals were blessed with all around the multiverse. Yep, multiple universes existed, and I am one of the individuals in the vast universes blessed with this incredible power. It was a bit of a downer, finding out that "The Gamer System" wasn't as unique as I thought it was, but who could say no to a power that could apparently turn you into a God of all things! And, when questioned, Elira admitted that she had been a System Guide to a multitude of Gamers, so this meant she definitely had experience with how to handle a...newbie(?) like me. She also admitted that she, as "The Gamer System's Guide" had control over the system itself, but some massive decisions were made by "Admins" who of which I believe to be beings above Gods. Then, there was also her admittance that the current System's template was copied from something called Dark Souls 3 with hints of Elden Ring, which she told me to steer clear of if I ever choose a Dungeon World to explore and gain EXP from. And, speaking of Dungeon World, a simulated world made by the System, it just goes to show just how powerful it was. Though, going back to the previous topic, my Status!

[Name: Midoriya Izumi]

[Level: 28]

[Title: Hero Hopeful]

[Class: Undetermined]

Health Points: 550

Focus Points: 98

Stamina: 100

Equipment Load: 6.5/58.0-11.2%

Item Discovery: 108

Attunement Slots: 1

[STATS]

Vigor: 15

Attunement: 11

Endurance: 14

Vitality: 18

Strength: 17

Dexterity: 14

Intelligence: 11

Luck: 7

According to Elira, level 28 was a pretty great level for a person my age. Not really all that impressive if you put it up against my peers with specialized quirks, but an impressive feat nonetheless if you consider that I achieved all this while initially being quirkless! Then, regarding the window above me, it was an explanation of what these stats were and what they affected.

[Vigor is a stat that determines the amount of health or hit points you have.]

[Attunement is a stat that determines the number of attunement slots or amount of spells you can carry at the same time and is also directly related to Faith Points.]

[Endurance is the stat that determines the amount of stamina you have.]

[Vitality is a stat that defines the maximum Equipment Load you can carry and strongly determines your Physical Defense and Resistances.]

[Strength is an attribute that correlates with how heavy you can wield and can directly affect the maximum damage you can inflict.]

[Dexterity is an attribute that determines your ability to perform spells and wield weapons.]

[Intelligence is an attribute that allows you to be able to perform spells and determines you Mystical Defense.]

[Luck determines how often your enemies will drop several items upon their death, through Item Discovery and also raises weapons, skills, and spells' effects.]

Though, I do admit that the descriptions were more informative, but Elira had admitted that the "Admins" were too lazy to make better descriptions, and I don't dare to curse their names. Then, afterwards was a more extensive talk about my Quirk. No matter what, from this day on, I'll do my very best to achieve my new found goal, be the #1 Hero as a big "Fuck You!" to all those bastards that dared to belittle me, and to those who will do so in the future!