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Chapter Text

Prologue - The Calm Before the Storm

The lights flickered as the storm roared outside. Annoyed eyes glimpse from a computer screen, toward the windows as the previously pitch-black sky flashes to life as a bolt of lightning strikes down some distance away.

“I swear to god, if the WiFi goes out before I finish this essay…”

BOOM!

As if taking your idle threat as a challenge, a deafening roar of thunder shakes the house, causing the lights to flicker again.

“Come on,” you quietly begged, “I’m almost done…”

In retrospect, you probably should have finished this earlier, since it was due at midnight and it was already nearing eleven in the evening, but you were swept away in such a good fanfiction that you didn’t want to peel your eyes from it until you’ve officially caught up on the story. However, by the time you finally managed to read the latest update, the storm was already full-force outside and time was nearing its end. Not to mention, you spent most of your morning looking after your sister’s dog while she was away on holiday in Rome with her boyfriend. Speaking of which…

“Bongo, where are you?” you called out, scanning around the room for the small, orange corgi. Bongo hated storms, and whenever you were at your sister’s house during one, he would cower by you as you stroked his fur to calm him down. But since the storm started, there was no sign of the dog near you.

“Shit, Bongo?!” you cursed, as you leapt to your feet. How long had Bongo been missing? Why hadn’t you noticed sooner?!

‘God, I’m such an idiot!’ you scolded yourself as you ran through the halls, searching for the lost dog.

“Bongo!” you flung open your bedroom door, only for it to be empty. “Bongo!”

“Calm your tits, (Y/N)!” a voice called down from the hall. “The doggo’s with me.”

You quickly rushed to the end of the hall and threw open your roommates door. Sure enough, your roommate, Juby, was laying on her bed with Bongo on her lap, the small dog fast asleep.

“Oh, thank god.”

“You’re welcome,” Juby joked, and you moved from your place in the door frame into the room, before crouching down and gently petting the dog on his head.

“How’d you get him to fall asleep? He’s absolutely terrified of storms.”

“What can I say, I’ve got a way with animals.” Juby winked, before gesturing towards her television, which had a familiar anime playing on it. “Wanna watch Boku no  Hero Academia with me?”

“You’re rewatching it again? ” you asked with fake astonishment. You can’t say you blame her, when you first sat down to watch the show, you were skeptical. But you easily fell in love with all of the quirky characters (pun intended). Needless to say, it quickly worked its way to one of your favorites.

“Of course!” she answered plainly. “Don’t you wish life could actually be like this? I mean, imagine if we were actually capable of quirks like these! If heroes and villains existed. Can you imagine what life would be like if we were heroes?!”

“If I was a hero, I’d probably end up just getting myself killed,” you admitted, after thinking about it a couple of minutes. “Even if we got amazing powers, there would no doubt be someone out there with better ones. I mean have you ever picked up a comic book?"

“But it's a manga, not a comic book," she corrected you.

"The same applies for manga too," you say, playfully shoving Juby's shoulder. "The fact they're fictional is what keeps them alive. Some of those injuries the characters receive totally would have killed them. The only reason it didn’t was because of plot-armour.”

"Awwwww, come on! Don’t be like that!”

“Huh? Like what?”

“You know, all negative and stuff! They’re heroes , they’ve trained their bodies and mind to withstand more than an average human.”

“They’re also not real,” you reminded her. “This is all a hypothetical scenario because heroes, and villains, and quirks aren’t real. It sucks, but that’s reality. Plain, boring, safe-ish reality.”

“Ugh, reality sucks.” Juby sighed, as she through back her head dramatically, closing her eyes.

“Honestly, I'd give anything for something interesting to happen. If I knew how boring life was as a kid, I definitely wouldn't have rushed to grow up. I would have just continued to play superheroes. But nope, I'm twenty-years-old, bored with life, and have an essay that's due in less than an hour. So I'm gonna go do that.” You turn to exit the room.

“I know it’s not possible, but if it was, I just want you to know that I think you would be an awesome hero.”

“Please, if either of us would be an awesome hero here, it’d be you. You’re so bright and full of life. I’m just…” you trail off.

“You are too,” Juby assured, “you’re just going through a rough patch right now. But I know you, and you can overcome it.”

“I-I, uh, I’ve got to go finish my essay,” you stutter out as you rushed out of the room, not really sure how to respond, but Juby swore she could hear you whisper a thank you as you did.

“Aaaaand… submitted!” you say with a breath of relief, it was two minutes to midnight, meaning you had turned your essay in just in time. Now you just had to hope that your professor gave you a good grade on it. No one ever said being a university student was easy.

“Finally finished?” you jump as Juby’s voice suddenly appeared behind you.

“You scared the shit out of me!” you exhale, your hand over your racing heart. “What are you doing up still?”

“Bongo woke up, and since it seems like the storms lightening up, I thought I’d take him outside quick to relieve himself before we go to bed.” At the mention of his name, the corgi barked and hopped over to the two of you.

“Who’s a good boy?” you ask as you crouch down and rub his head as Juby grabs his leash, connecting it to his collar.

“Come on, Bongo. Time to go potty.” Juby leads him towards the door, grabbing her raincoat and slipping it on. She had just opened up the door when a flash of lightning struck down the street.

CRACK!

A sharp, ear-splitting crack of thunder echoed through the air. In a split second of shock from the piercing noise, Juby’s grip on Bongo’s leash loosened, and the dog went bolting out the door.

“Bongo!” you screamed, as you pushed past Juby out the door after the dog, completely ignoring the fact you were wearing nothing but a t-shirt and sweatpants. As your bare feet splashed through the ever growing puddles that flooded the streets, you glanced around, searching for any sign of your sisters bright-furred dog. Catching a glimpse of him out of the corner of your eye heading in the opposite direction that the lightning struck, you ran in a mad-dash after him. “Bongo! Come here, boy! BONGO!!”

Your mind was in a blind panic. You had to get him! You had to rescue him before he got hurt or lost! You ran as fast as your legs could carry, running after the dog who was heading towards the intersection of your street and another. Your legs burned, but you still pushed yourself.

“(Y/N)!!” Juby’s voice called out from behind you, but you weren’t paying attention. You were almost there. You reached out, you were only a few inches away. But before you could get a grasp, a bright light appeared in your peripheral vision. You quickly withdrew your hand as your head whipped towards the two bright lights heading towards you at a speed no one should be going in a storm like this.

CRASH!

Your body flew like a rag-doll as the car made impact. You could taste iron and your entire body felt like it was burning. With the last bit of strength you had, you glanced back. You had to make sure Bongo was alright. As soon as your eyes landed on the dog who had finally stopped running, and was instead looking at you with the saddest expression you’ve ever seen on a corgi’s face, you let out a pained sigh of relief. Bongo was alright.

Slowly, your vision started to fade to black, and you closed your eyes, ready to be met with the sweet embrace of death. You’re body was still burning, and you waited for the numbness to overtake you. But it never did, not even when the white light appeared. The light grew, bigger and bigger, but the burning didn’t stop. No, it only increased. With all your might, you cry out in pain.

“女の子です！(*)”

Wait, was that Japanese? What the hell is going on?

(*) = “It’s a girl!”

Chapter Text

A New Beginning

Fushichou Akane had promised herself she would be a good mother. After her husband died five months into her pregnancy, she promised herself that she would be the best damn mother that her child would ever ask for-- that she’d give enough love for the both of them. She tried to be as prepared as possible. She read all of the parenting books, took all of the classes, asked her friends and family for advice-- even asking her dead-husband's family for help in case the child had inherited his quirk. She thought she was prepared for anything else life decided to through at her! Until she wasn’t.

Admittedly, she wasn’t sure what to expect the day she gave birth. Being a first time mother, everything was completely new to her, and in today’s quirk-filled society, anything was possible. Being the child of someone with a flight quirk like herself, and a wind-manipulation quirk like her father, she knew her child was likely to have one of their unique quirk. That’s how she came up with the name of her daughter: Fushichou Kaze (*). But she was otherwise expecting to have a normal child. She was not expecting, well, you .

You were by no means a difficult child. But having the mentality of a twenty-year-old stuck in the body of an infant wasn’t easy. Being forced to be so dependent on someone was frankly embarrassing, considering you didn’t have the luxury of infantile amnesia. You didn’t like having to have your diaper changed as much as your mother liked changing you. So as soon as your body grew strong enough to carry itself on two legs, when potty training started, you were more than happy to oblige.

At first, you refused to believe that any of this was real. That you were dead, and that you were reborn as a baby in Japan. But, when day-after-day passed, and you were still waking up in the same body that you fell asleep in, you had no choice but to accept it as reality. However, when you finally got old enough that you’re new mother took you outside on your own, instead of in a stroller that obscured your vision, you once again began to question everything. The world you were in was not the one that you had died in.

You had no idea where you were, but you quickly deduced that you were in some sort of super-powered world. So many normal people had such extraordinary abilities! You saw a crossing guard who had cat ears and a tail, and an invisible man. You only knew he was there because of his clothing! If you were being honest, he reminded you of Hagakure Toru from My Hero Academia . If you didn’t know better, you’d almost think you were in their world. However, their world was fictional, right? Then again, with almost everyone around you having some sort of super-power, you weren’t in any place to judge what’s real and what’s fiction anymore.

‘Ahhhh, if only,’ you thought to yourself, ‘that would be a fangirls dream. This is probably just a happy coincidence.’ Your mind echoed back to what Juby had said to you the day that you died.

“Don’t you wish life could actually be like this?” she had asked as she stared at the anime on her screen with a dreamy expression in her eyes. “I mean, imagine if we were actually capable of quirks like these! If heroes and villains existed. Can you imagine what life would be like if we were heroes?!”

You wondered if your parents had any kinds of abilities that they passed onto you. Your mother never showed any sort of ability, and you weren’t sure what happened to your new body’s father. From what you could piece together, he’s gone. However, until you can further expand your vocabulary, you’ll never have a full grasp on what happened.

It was times like this that you were grateful to be reborn. Having all of the memories that you did in your past life, you had a great advantage on all the other children your age, except for in Japanese, of course, since you had to be taught that one. You thought that you had limited your intelligence, only expressing it decently when you were alone. However, you underestimated how keen of eyes your mother had.

Akane noticed that you weren’t like other children. While her friend’s young children often had temper tantrums, and went through the ‘mine!’ stages, you did none of that. When your mother told you to do something, you did it. When she told you not to touch something, you didn’t. You hadn’t thought much of it, the only time you didn’t obey was when you didn’t understand what was spoken to you. But the more and more she watched you, the more and more peculiar she found your actions. Instead of being interested in the things a typical child would, such as dolls and make believe, you were fascinated with heroes and knowledge.

“Mama?” you had once inquired when you were three-years-old. “Do you have a power too?”

“A power?” she knelt down to your level. “Oh, you mean a quirk?”

“Q-quirk?!” you stared at her with wide eyes, your mouth parting slightly in shock.

“Yes, my dear,” she confirmed, before standing back up. “Why don’t I show you?” She gave you a kind smile as she presented her quirk. You stood there in awe as your mother levitated off of the ground, and started hovering around the room, moving from in front of you, to the kitchen, before doing a flip and floating back to you.

“Woah…” was all that you were able to get out at the display. It was one thing to see all of those strangers outside do these amazing things, but this was your own mother! Even if she wasn’t your original mother, she was still the mother of this form and you grew to care for her deeply. Akane got a mischievous gleam in her red eyes before she flew down and swept you up in her arms. “Eep!”

Akane began dancing around the room with you in her arms, her feet still far from the ground.

“Don’t worry, my sweet, I’ve got you.” Slowly, laugher chimed throughout the room as you danced with your mother.

“Will I be able to fly too, mama?” you inquire.

“Only time will tell,” she replied. “You might be able to fly, or you might get the same quirk that your dad had.”

Your mother didn’t talk about your father much, but whenever she did, she got this melancholy look on her face. Typically, she never brought him up herself. The only time when you heard about him was when your grandparents were around, reflecting on how much you looked like him. You hadn’t seen any pictures of him, so you weren’t too sure what that meant. However, hearing your mom talk about him openly, your curiosity got the better of you and the words left your mouth before you could stop.

“Where is dad?” although Akane held you close to her chest, you could still feel the teardrops landing on the back of your head.

“He’s gone…”

It was almost exactly a year after you first saw your mother’s quirk, that you unlocked your own. Now that you were getting older, you wanted to learn new skills, ones that your old body didn’t have. Naturally, you searched your brain for things that you could start learning at a young age and master as you got older. If you’re theory was correct, you truly were in the My Hero Academia world. Either that, or you were born in the far future and the popularity of the anime had made ‘Quirk’ the official term for super powered individuals. Regardless, learning how to fight in a world like this would probably be a priority. Because there was no way in hell that you wouldn’t become a hero in a world were that was an option. So you begged and pleaded with your mother to let you take a martial arts class. Aikido. Judo. Kendo. Jujitsu. Anything .

Unfortunately, you were only four. So instead, your mother enrolled you in a dance class at a small studio across from where she worked.

“You’re too young to be in a fighting class,” she tried to reason.

“But I wanna be a hero someday!” you countered, puffing out your cheeks. “You can’t be a hero by spinning in circles!”

“I was in a dance class when I was your age,” she frowned. “Trust me, it’ll be good for you. Maybe in a few years, you can join a martial arts class, okay?”

On one hand, you understood her reasoning about not wanting you to be in a position where you might get hurt. On the other, you once again felt slightly discriminated against because of your age.

You didn’t have anything against dancing. In fact, you surprisingly found the entire thing rather enjoyable. There were so many moves that you had no idea existed- arabesque, assemblé, développé, échappé, grand jeté- just to name a few (**). Though in all honesty, you still couldn’t get a full grasp on the names. You were having enough trouble remembering Japanese, you didn’t need to add French to the mix.

You’ve been in the class for a few months now. And today, your class was going to be performing a small recital for the parents. Rather than having a small group of young children performing at once, the instructor set it up so that each child would perform a short solo dance, since each child was at a different skill level. Being the most recent addition to the class, this was your first performance. You were a little nervous, but if your past life has taught you anything, it's that if you mess up as a kid, you just need to cry and someone will buy you ice cream.

“And now introducing our newest addition to the class: Fushichou Kaze!” you stood there for a solid minute before it clicked in your brain that you were Kaze. You still weren’t used to this body’s name, since it was usually just you and your mom, and she usually just called you various pet names. You didn’t necessarily dislike your name, but it was just… weird to be called something completely different than your true name.

You made your way onto the small stage, and looked at the small audience. It was only about 20 people or so, including your mother, who sent you a small wave. Taking a deep breath, you closed your eyes and got into position and your instructor turned on the music. Trying to recall your routine, you extended your arms and stood on your toes, before you raised your left leg and performed a pirouette. As your body spun, you let yourself become lost in the music, moving your body along with it. You spun, and spun, and quickly tried to remember what came next in your routine. You were pretty sure that it was a leap. As you moved to do it, you found yourself unable to stop spinning. Confused, you opened your eyes and saw a small twister around you. Your eyes widened, as you put your foot down, trying to steady yourself so you’d stop spinning. But it wasn’t stopping! Before you could do anything, your mother sprung from her feet and flew towards you, using her quirk to propel herself towards you and sweep you up out of the vortex. As soon as you were plucked up out of the center, the whirlwind disbanded and the room was left in a small state of chaos: empty chairs having been knocked over and ballet pamphlets scattered the floor.

“I-I-” you looked around at everyone who stared at you with surprise. Though quirks weren’t unusual, you could tell none of them thought that a small child such as yourself would be responsible for causing a mini-tornado in the middle of your performance.

“It’s okay, it’s okay...” Akane repeated to you, as she sat you down on the floor, placing her hands on your shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“I-I… W-was that me?” Something about the look on her face told you that answer was a yes. It also told you that it was your father’s quirk that you had just exhibited, and she looked as though she was about to cry.

As soon as you got home, you debated on whether or not you wanted to press your mother about the nature of your quirk. On one hand, you were absolutely ecstatic! It’s always been your dream to have some kind of superpower, and now you actually have one! But on the other hand (the part that the mature, adult part of your brain suggested), you saw just how distraught your mother was after what had happened at the recital. Hell, she didn’t even want to stay to watch the other kids perform, instead opting to apologize for the mess that you caused and taking you home. So asking her about it now, well, that just seemed a bit cruel. However, you were going to have to find out about it eventually. What was the nature of your power? From what you could tell, it had something to do with the wind. Were you just able to create cyclones, or did that shape only take form because you were spinning?

As all these questions bounced through your head, you didn’t realize that your mother had slipped by and her way into the kitchen. She sighed as she put a kettle on the stove for tea. She needed something to take the stress off her, and it was either a cup of tea or a glass of wine. But it was too early in the day for wine. She had phone calls to make, people to talk to, things to explain. God, she wished her husband was still here.

She shook her head, no amount of wishing would change the past. No, now she had to focus on the present. She dug out her old phone book and searched through the numbers, before glancing at you in the living room, who stood there, dancing around. She assumed that you were frustrated that you didn’t get to finish your dance in class before your quirk interrupted you, so she went back to her search for a certain number, glancing at you now and again to make sure you didn’t conjure up another twister. Little did she knew, that you were actually trying to remember some of Aang’s airbending moves from Avatar: the Last Airbender. If your hunch was right, and you could manipulate the air, or even just the wind, then you were pretty sure that trying to imitate the airbender was a step in the right direction.

You stared wide-eyed at the boy in front of you, your mouth hung open in shock. Yes, you did have your theories about this actually being the world of My Hero Academia. But you had thought that it was just wishful thinking. After all, none of the heroes that you heard about were any of those mentioned in the anime or manga. You figured the biggest hint about it would be if All Might was a hero or not. When you had asked your mother about said hero, she asked if All Might was your new imaginary friend. So to your displeasure, you just dismissed this all as a happy coincidence. But staring at the boy in front of you, this all made so much more sense. You were in the world of My Hero Academia , that much you were sure of now. You anticipated that much at this point. But what you didn’t anticipate was the five-year old Aizawa Shouta staring back at you with a bored expression on his face.

If you sat down to think about it, that actually made a lot more sense. The reason why some things (such as the existence of quirks as well as heroes and villains) were how they were was because you were in the same universe as the anime/manga… however, you weren’t in the same time-frame, which you would have assumed. You still weren’t exactly sure how you felt about that discovery, since you were still reeling in shock. After all, Aizawa was an even cuter kid than you would have thought.

“What are you staring at?” he questioned, tilting his head slightly to the side, causing his black locks to partially obscure one of his eyes. Despite this, his gaze did not leaving your own. When you didn’t respond, and just kept looking at him with a dumbstruck expression on your face, he continued. “If you keep your mouth open like that, you’ll end up eating a fly.”

“I- oh!” you shook your head.

‘Come on, you just met one of your favorite characters! Stop making a fool of yourself!’ you mentally scolded yourself, before looking back at him, giving him your biggest smile.

“Hi!” when Aizawa gave you a weird look, you quickly became worried. Did you do something wrong? Did that sound too forced? Were you being too enthusiastic? As if sensing your fears, he spoke.

“...hi.”

“Hi,” wait, you already said that. “I’m Fushichou Kaze.”

“I know, my mom told me she was going to babysit you while your mom was gone.”

“Oh.”

“Yep.”

“Well… aren’t you going to introduce yourself?”

“Why? Don’t you already know who I am?” he inquired. “My mom should have told you.”

“Yeah, but… I just thought…” You looked down, embarrassed. If you were being completely honest, you hadn’t necessarily needed the boy to introduce himself. However, you had no idea what to talk with him about. Your mom just dropped you off with a friend while she took care of business. Never in your wildest dream you would have guessed who her friend’s son was. And now you were making a complete fool of yourself in front of-

“Aizawa Shouta,” he said, interrupting your trail of thoughts.

“Huh?”

“You wanted me to introduce myself, right?” a small smile flashed across your face as you looked back up at him.

“Aizawa Shouta...” you repeated, testing the name on your lips. Hearing the name, your mind automatically drifted towards the older version of the boy in front of you- one who’s a teacher at the U.A. However, that’s a long time from now. “Can I call you Shou?”

“Are you serious?”

“What? It’s short and cute, like you!”

It wasn’t quite the introduction you were hoping for, but at least he didn’t seem to outright dislike you. In fact, this might just be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Chapter Text

Easy Breezy

“Kaze, wake up,” a hand grabbed your shoulder and gave you a shake.

“Huh?” you’re voice was groggy as you lifted your head up, rubbing sleep from your eyes until you could clearly see who woke you. “Oh. Hi, Shou. What’s... up?”

“You fell asleep in class again,” he informed you, causing you to notice the empty classroom surrounding you.

“Oh,” you weren’t surprised you fell asleep. All of these basic school lessons were quite boring to you. You were excited to learn about this worlds history, so you had no problems with that class. And you paid attention during your Japanese lessons. But the other classes- science, math, literature- it was all to easy. You were way beyond it. So, you occupied yourself in other ways during those classes- drawing, reading, writing sleeping. Your teachers were mad at first, but eventually they just learned to let you do whatever you wanted since you did all of your homework and passed the exams with flying colours.

“I got tired of waiting outside, so I figured I’d see what was taking you so long.” Shou’s voice brought you back to reality, as you gave him a sheepish smile.

“Sorry,” you apologized. School might have not been so bad if the two of you had been placed in the same class, instead of him being in the classroom down the hall. Ever since you met him eight years ago, you realized something. Meeting him couldn’t have been a coincidence. Even if you were born 30 years prior to the start of the series, maybe you would still be able to help out in the events to come. You’d be an adult by that time, so you might not be able to be as intertwined into the story as you’d like, but you could still do something .

“You got drool on your… english homework?” you quickly wiped your face and shut the book before Shou could see any more of it. Realizing that you had knowledge to the events to come was a huge advantage-- but those events wouldn’t happen for another 17 years. As soon as you realized it, you started documenting every event that you could remember from the story in english, so prying eyes wouldn’t be able to easily decipher it. The fact that you let Shou see a long enough peak that he could see it was english so quickly was a problem. You already knew you’d have to be careful around him, but you didn’t realize that Aizawa Shouta was just as insightful in his youth as he was in his adulthood.

“You were waiting for me?” you changed the subject.

“Yeah,” he replied simply and you cut him off before he could say anything more.

“Oh, Shouta! You do care!” you leaped out of your desk and tackled him into a hug. He stumbled a bit, trying to not fall over, finally regaining his footing as he gave you an annoyed look, his cheeks tinted pink.

“W-what are you talking about? Of course I was waiting, earlier we agreed to help each other practice our quirks, remember? You know I can’t use my quirk on myself.”

“Oh yeah, sure. But then... why are you blushing?” you teased, poking his cheek, before releasing the boy from your embrace. You expected the young Shouta to be a world different than the Aizawa Shouta that you were familiar with, but you weren’t expecting them to be this different. Though he was still smart and reserved, he wasn’t nearly as stoic as his adult counterpart. In fact, you could regularly get him to smile, even laugh sometimes. You couldn’t help but wonder what happened to turn him so cold.

“I probably just got sunburnt waiting outside for so long,” he reasoned, and you resisted the urge to roll your eyes. One of your favorite games was to embarrass Shou, because he would just deny it. It was pretty adorable.

“Whatever,” you picked up your bag as you followed Shou out the door. “So, where do you wanna practice?”

The day you first discovered your quirk was also the day that you had first met Shou. After you’re dance-class disaster, Akane called up her in-laws and asked if they could meet her to discuss your quirk. Since she hadn’t spoken to them since her husband passed, she decided to leave you in the care of one of her trusted friends since high school: Aizawa Ai. The woman was more than happy to look after you, it was the perfect opportunity to get her son to come out of his shell, after all.

You two got along pretty well. Better than you would have guessed, anyway. You had learned that Shou’s mom had the same quirk that he did, and you assumed that was why your mother entrusted you to her, rather than just calling your normal babysitter. If you lost control of your quirk at all, she would be able to disable it so you wouldn’t cause any damage. You wanted to be upset that your mother didn’t trust you to keep your quirk under control, but you really couldn’t blame her. Never in your wildest dreams did you expect your life to end up, well, like this.

Being reborn was one thing. Being reborn into another world with all of your memories intact and a seemingly dangerous superpower was a different thing entirely. You thought you were doing quite well, all things considered. But you were still young-- this was just the beginning. You just hoped things continued to go smoothly. And they did, for a while. Then you met your grandparents.

It was the day after your fifth birthday when you heard a knock at your door. You looked up from your book of mythical creatures, a gift that Shou had given you the day before.

“I got it, Mama!” you called as you hopped up and ran towards the door. She stepped out of the kitchen just as you swung the door open, looking up at the elderly couple that stared down at you with stern eyes.

“You’re here earlier than I thought,” Akane smiled at them, but you could tell it was forced. “Feel free to take a seat, lunch is almost ready.” They removed their shoes and stepped inside, eyeing over the apartment with a grimace.

“It’s smaller than I anticipated,” the old woman noted, before turning towards you again. “You must be Yusuke’s child. Kaba?”

“Kaze,” you corrected, trying your best to give her a polite smile. You’re japanese still wasn’t perfect, but you’re pretty sure that she just called you a Hippopotamus. “Are you my grandmother?” You vaguely recall your mother mentioning having your grandparents come over sometime in order to teach you how to use your quirk.

“It would seem so,” she sighed. “I hoping there was some kind of mix-up, but it would appear that you’ve inherited Yusuke’s quirk. But it looks like I’m not done dealing with your whore mother, yet.”

Okay, this lady was a Bitch, with a capital ‘B’. Because she was just that awful of a person. You could tolerate if she was respectfully disliked your mother, according to nearly every Rom-Com you’ve seen in your previous life, it was perfectly normal. But she was shit-talking Akane to her five-year-old daughter. Now, most normal five-year-olds don’t know what a ‘whore’ is, but you were far from normal. You knew just what a whore was, and you’re mother was nothing close to one. She hasn’t even been on a single date since you were born.

“What’s your problem?!” you snap before you can stop yourself. “Why are you saying such bad things about her?” You were not just gonna sit by idly and watch your grandmother bully your mom.

“Don’t talk back to your elders, girl. Didn’t that woman teach you manners?”

“Didn’t anyone teach you manners?” you countered, causing her face to flush with anger. You clench your fists as you glare at your grandmother, not backing down.

“She’s got a fire in her,” your grandfather observes, amusement creeping into his voice, and your eyes flicker towards him. That’s the first thing he’s said since he’s gotten here. “She’s definitely our Yusuke’s daughter.”

You weren’t, not really. You were just a short-tempered university student with a wannabe-hero complex in a body that wasn’t your own. But if that’s what it took to win over your grandfather, then that’s all that matters.

“Interesting…” was all your grandmother said in response.

“What’s going on in here?” your mother’s voice cut through the tension in the air as she poked her head in from the kitchen.

“You sure she’s got Aerokinesis and not Pyrokinesis, cause this one’s a spitfire,” your grandfather laughs.

“Aerokinesis is the ability to control, shape, and manipulate the air around you,” your grandmother explains after you had all finished eating. Lunch had passed in awkward silence as your grandmother kept eyeing you. You weren’t sure if it was because she was pissed you stood up to her, or if by doing so you managed to somehow earn a sliver of her respect. Either way, it resulted in you losing your appetite and your plate remaining only half-eaten.

“So I can do the windy thing?”

“If you want an answer, phrase it properly.”

“So I can control the wind?”

“Among other things,” you looked at your grandmother with wide eyes, hoping for her to further explain.

“Don’t look at me,” she told you, nodding towards her husband. “Aerokinesis is a Fushichou heirloom. I’m just the brains.” You were surprised that it wasn’t your grandmother who had your same quirk, though you supposed you were lucky. She very well could have sent you flying earlier if that was the case.

“You’ve got it then?” you questioned your grandfather.

“Indeed I do,” the old man said.

“Can you teach me?”

And he did. For the next eight years, you worked together with him in order to harness and control your Aerokinesis quirk. At first, it was difficult. You were having trouble making the winds do what you wanted to.

“I want you to keep this balloon from floating away,” he said to you one day as he held several strings with helium balloons attached.

“Really? This is gonna be easy!” you replied with confidence. You had already been training with him after school for a while, when you weren’t at dance lessons or with Shou. You’ve gotten to the point where you can generate a gust of wind strong enough to knock over a full garbage can (much to your grandmother's annoyance), create small whirlwinds (much like the one you first created when you discovered your quirk, only this time you didn’t have to be in the center of it), and you could even hover (not as high as your mom though)!

“Well, have at it then.” He released one of the balloons from his hands, and you went to move the air above it to a downward breeze to keep it in place, only for it to start going to the left instead.

“Woah, wait! I didn’t say you could do that!” you called out to the balloon as you changed the direction of the wind, only for it to start to drift upwards again.

“Don’t forget, my dear, that we’re outdoors. There’s already a breeze other than the one that you’re creating.”

“Then I’ll just have to trap it then!” You take a deep breath as you raise your hands, focusing on the air currents. Slowly, you clasp your hands together, the air currents pushing towards the balloon, keeping it in place. Finally, you had it right where you-

POP!

Wait, what just happened?

“You put too much pressure on it,” your grandfather explains. “Balloons are fragile, even more so than people. If you put too much pressure on it, you’ll destroy it. Air is such a gentle, free element. But it can also be dangerous and cause a lot of harm. You can’t force it to bend to your will.” The old man leaned over and blew in your face. His breath smelled like coffee. “But rather move yourself to move with it. Think about your dance classes. You’re moving quickly and lightly, much like the winds that you control. Now, try it again with that in mind.”

You nod, and he released another one of the balloons. He didn’t say you had to keep it in one place, just that you had to keep it from blowing away. You take a deep breath, as you go after the balloon.

To your surprise, Shou took you up to the rooftop. When you two had originally agreed to practice together, you came up with a rule: the two of you would take turns picking where you’d spar. Since quirks weren’t allowed to be used in public, the two of you had to find creative locations to practice. Usually, you’d end up going to the forest, or one of your backwards. The rules of your sparring sessions were simple, you wouldn't cause any permanent damage to one another, and the winner was the first one to get the other one pinned for three seconds.

“Can we be up here?” you question, looking down at the school grounds below you.

“They should’ve locked the door,” Shou shrugged off his bag and sat it by the entryway. You did the same.

“Shouldn’t there be a fence or something? So kids don’t fall off?”

“Hell if I know,” was the response you got.

“Anyway, what are we waiting for? This is the first step towards us becoming Pro-Heroes! I’m ready whenever you are!” you smile as you take your fighting stance, several feet away from Shou. His eyes scan you over for a moment, before he nods. In an instant, you leap towards him and sweep towards his leg, causing him to jump back. Not giving him a second to pause, you swipe your arm towards him, activating your quirk and sending a blast of wind towards him. He gets shoved back a bit, but not hard enough to push him over.

“You’ve been practicing,” he noted.

“I’ve picked up a couple new tricks,” you admitted, as you jump towards him again. It goes like this for several minutes, you being on the offensive and him playing defense. With his quick being what it is, you could understand why he'd want to be strong in his defense. Or maybe he just didn't want to hurt you, but that's just wishful thinking.

If you had to bet, you'd say that the only reason he hadn’t used his quirk was because he to get the feel of fighting someone who has their quirk active. Either way, it gave you a chance to practice fighting with your quirk active, so you weren't complaining. But at any moment he could change his mind and activate his quirk, so you were trying to take him down while you had a chance. Since you were using your wind to enhance your speed, the moment he turned it on you be forced to fight at half your normal speed. Not to mention the fact that Shou was quite a bit better at hand-to-hand combat than you when you didn't have your quirk active.

You know you shouldn’t be so reliant on your quirk, but it just makes life so much easier. Plus, if your mom would have just enrolled you in self-defense like you’ve been bugging her too, then maybe you wouldn’t have had to become so reliant on it.

“Alright, I’m going to finish this...” you mutter as you pushed yourself up off the ground after Shou managed to score a lucky punch. Taking a deep breath, you spun as you formed a whirlwind around you like you did all those years ago when you first discovered your quirk. You hadn't formed a tornado like this since, but you figured now was a good as any to try. You felt your feet raise off the ground because of the winds flying around you, and you launched yourself towards Shou. At least, you thought it was towards Shou. You didn't remember getting this dizzy last time. Searching through the winds, your eyes met Shou's as his grew wide. Suddenly, the familiar feel of your quirk becoming nullified passed through you as you met the ground again, the world still spinning around you despite the fact you'd stopped. Shou flung himself towards you, trying to grab you to steady you. But he was too late as your fingers slipped right past his as you fell backwards.

A scream left your lips as you realized you were falling. It only took a moment for you to come to that conclusion, but it was a moment you lost as you neared your inevitable demise. Again. Would your second chance at life really end at the tender age of 13? All because of a careless mistake? No! You refused to let this be the end of you. You’re supposed to be a hero with Aizawa! You gather all of the strength you have, and sent a gale of wind towards the ground, hoping it would be enough to save you. Your vision goes black as your stripped of your consciousness. But one thing remains true:

You never hit the ground.

Chapter Text

Promises and Potential

You were unconscious for the better portion of five minutes.

The second you regained consciousness, you were sure you were dead. Despite your sureness that you had pried open your eyes, you were met with nothing but darkness. But when your eyes started to focus, you realized that it wasn’t darkness-- it was a shadow of a silhouette blocking out your vision!

“All Might…?” you questioned, unsure if the events occurring were real. The man looked at you, as if surprised to be recognized by you. But you were sure that was All Might! He looked just how he did in the series, in his large, muscular form.

“Ah! Yes, it is I, All Might!” he exclaims. “I’m glad I was passing by when I was. Are you alright?” After recalling the moments leading to you blacking out, you supposed the fact that you were waking up a miracle in itself.

“I was falling, and I tried to use my quirk to catch myself,” you recalled, “but I passed out. What happened after?”

“I heard the scream and came as quickly as I could. I saw you come to a halt mid-air, and I leapt into action to grab you and get you to safety. I wasn’t sure how long the effects would last, but I didn’t want to risk you plummeting to the ground. That’s some impressive quirk you’ve got there.”

You thank him as you reflect on the newfound information. It would seem that you’re attempt had been moderately successful, having stalled your doom long enough for someone competent to come rescue you. You were honestly a bit ashamed in yourself for getting yourself into that situation in the first place.

“Don’t look so down,” All Might flashed you one of his award-winning smiles, as he offered a hand to help you up from the ground. You took it, and he pulled you up with ease. “You can use this opportunity as a learning experience to be more careful in the future. Tell me, what do you want to do when you grow up?”

“I… I want to be a pro hero.”

“In that case, use that as a motivator! Be careful today, so you can be a hero tomorrow!”

A quick pair of footsteps interrupted the two of you as the doors to the school slammed open, and an out-of-breath Shou came bursting through them.

“Kaze!” he breathed out, as he dashed towards you, not stopping until he was practically on-top of you, pulling you into a tight embrace. “Why do you have to be so damn reckless…?”

“Told you there should have been a fence up there...” you tried to joke, but his grip on you only tightened.

“I thought I lost…” he sniffled, “I thought you were gone.”

“I thought so too,” you admitted, tightly hugging Shou back. You weren’t expecting the sudden show of affection, but you weren’t about to complain. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” it wasn’t until you felt a dampness on your back that you realized Shou was crying. Hold on! Aizawa Shouta was crying because he thought you died. The thought made you both giddy and heartbroken as you realized just how much your existence has affected this world.

“Hey, now,” you pulled back from the boy and looked at his tear-stained face. You cupped his cheek in your hand and wiped away one of his teardrops. “What’s with all these tears? You never cry. Not even when you broke your arm when we were nine!”

“S-shut up. Don’t talk about the Tokyo Zoo incident.”

“But I’ve never seen an Ostrich so angry before!”

“That’s because you literally sent it flying.”

“It was an accident!” you defended, cracking a smile at the boy, who managed to return a small one back, despite his tear-stained features. It only lasted a moment, before seriousness returned to his expression as he raised his hand and removed your own from his cheek. You noticed that his hold on your hand lingered for a few moments longer before he released it, and you wondered if he noticed too.

“What even happened?” suddenly, you remembered All Might’s existence as you turned around to introduce him to said male. But as you went to do so, you found that the hero was nowhere to be found.

“He was just here,” you told him, only adding to Shou’s confusion. “All Might.”

“Who?”

You guessed that you had met All Might near the beginning of his career, before he made a huge name for himself. Assuming that had all actually happened, that is, and wasn’t just some weird hallucination from overuse of your powers.

You looked at the U.A. Application for the Hero Program that lay on the desk in front of you. Finally, it was time for your future to truly begin. When you told Shou that you planned on entering the Hero Program, he was initially against it, reminding you of your reckless nature and tendency to get yourself into trouble. But you promised you’d be more careful from then on, and eventually he accepted it, on one condition: that he would attend whatever school you got into. He said that it was in order to keep an eye on you.

“I just want to focus on being a pro-hero,” he had said. “So I really I don’t give two shits about which school I go too as long as I can accomplish my goal.”

Hearing that shocked you. He was supposed to go to U.A.! It was essential for the plot! If he didn’t attend that school, then he wouldn’t become a teacher there. And what would Class 1-A do without there lazy, stern, and slightly psychotic homeroom teacher?! So that meant that the entire fate of the universe depended on if you got accepted into U.A. High School.

No pressure or anything.

When you told your mom that you and Shou both planned to attend the same high school, she wasn’t surprised, having had figured as much since you two were inseparable since childhood.

The sound of the front door of the house opening snapped you out of your train of thought as you glanced up to your mother, who was shuffling through mail as she walked inside.

“Hey, sweetie. Which high school is it that you’re trying to get into?”

“U.A. High School, why?” you inquired.

“Because you’ve got a letter here from them.”

“What?! That’s impossible, I haven’t even sent in my application yet!” with a gust of wind, you pulled the letter from your mom's hand and guided it to your desk, where you looked down at it. Sure enough, it was a letter addressed to you from the high school. Confused, you open up the letter, expecting it to just be some kind of spam letter to get you to apply. But reading the contents inside, your eyes widened, and you go over the words again and again to make sure you had read the contents correctly.

“What is it?”

“It says that I’ve been recommended by one of their staff as a student for their hero program. I’ve just got to send in my application with the official paperwork and… I’m in.”

“I’m so proud of you!” Akane squeezes your shoulder. “Any idea which of the staff you’ve managed to impress enough to let you in?” You shook your head, in all truth, you had no idea who the teachers were for this time period. It could have been anyone. “Oh, well. I guess now we just have to hope that Shouta gets accepted too.”

“He will,” you tell your mother, “he’s incredible.”

“How cute. So, when should I plan the wedding for?”

“Mom!” The older woman simply laughed as your face flushed. She was crazy, there was no way anything like that would ever happen… right? Then again, the way he acted around you was very out-of-character of him. But you were sure that it was just because he was young and hadn’t had to deal with all the hardships of life. Besides, you two were best friends. It’s only natural that you two are so close. Deciding to not let your mom’s teasing affect you too much, you stand up from your desk.

“I’m going over to Shou’s to tell him I got accepted,” you informed your mother as you headed for the door, grabbing your jacket.

“Don’t forget to tell him just how incredible you think he is!”

“Oh, ha ha.” You can’t help but roll your eyes as you leave your house, pulling your jacket close to you as the chill of the air nipped at your exposed skin.

When you told Shou that you got a recommendation for U.A., he looked at you in disbelief.

“Hey, don’t look at me like that,” you grumbled, “is it that surprising?”

“You got a recommendation?” he repeated back to you, prompting you to nod, feeling slightly annoyed by his disbelief. Just because you put up a naïve front in front of him, doesn’t mean that you were stupid. You’re wiser than most young teenagers, mostly due to the fact you’ve been alive for a total of 34 years if you combined the ages of your two lifetimes.

“I’m sorry,” he told you, finally noticing that his reaction mildly upset you. “It’s just incredible. That school is so difficult to get into, with application alone. So the chances of getting in as a recommendation is astronomical. I was just trying to figure out who you might have impressed and when.”

He had a point. You didn’t think much about it at the time, but the U.A. is probably one of the hardest hero academies to get into, since it’s one of the best in Japan. Not to mention the fact that All Might’s popularity definitely attracted some students during the time of the series. At the present, however, All Might is still relatively unknown. So though he could be a possibility of your letter of recommendation at the school, you highly doubted it. He didn’t have much sway rather than the fact that he was a student there. Plus, you didn’t exactly leave the best first impression when you met him, having probably died if he didn’t intervene.

“I don’t know,” you admitted after thinking about it for a moment. “Maybe it’s because of my grandparents. My grandfather was a pro-hero back in the day, maybe he had a fan from the school who wanted to see what his granddaughter’s capable of.”

“Did… did your dad go to U.A.?” Shou hesitantly questioned.

“I don’t know, mom never talks about him. Whenever I try to ask about my dad, she gets sad and changes the subject. My grandparents don’t really talk about him either. Even after all this time, the only thing I know is his names Fushichou Yusuke, he passed away before I was born, and he has the same quirk as I do.”

You’ve tried to look him up before, but your searches have always came up blank. It was really weird, and you weren’t sure if you’ve stumbled upon a mystery in itself, or if there was just a glitch in the universe from your unexpected addition.

“I’m sorry, I know what it’s like to not have a dad.” Shou said after a moment’s pause, which caused you to look at him in surprise. This is the first time he’s ever brought up his father during the entire time you knew him. You knew his father wasn’t in the picture, but that’s as far as your knowledge extended. You never pushed it, either. The two of you were in the same position, and it just became an unspoken agreement between the two of you to never speak of it. The fact that he was speaking of it now was a surprise in itself.

“My dad left us a few months before you met me,” Shou continued. “He and my mom were never married. They fought a lot. Over anything and everything. It’s part of the reason my mom gave me her family name, instead of his, even if that was just the cause of another fight.

“One day, they got in a particularly bad fight. Ended up in my dad storming out. My mom asked him where the hell he was going, and he shouted back, ‘Anywhere is better than here!’ and left. And I guess that’s when he decided that he’s had enough, because he never came back.”

“I’m sorry, Shou. I had no idea…”

“I’m not,” he said. “I was miserable growing up because all they ever did was fight. I know my mom was so worried that I’d grow to hate her for my dad leaving, but I never did. I was actually relieved when it happened.”

“But still… No one should have to deal with that. Especially you.”

“Especially me?” Shou quirks an eyebrow at you, causing you to mentally curse. You didn’t realize that you said that out loud. “I’m grateful you think that, but to be honest, I can’t stand the sad way you’re looking at me right now. I don’t want pity. If anything, it made me stronger.”

“I don’t pity you,” you stated. “I’m just saying, it sucks that things so bad have to happen to people who are so… you know… good . You’re pretty much my favorite person, so I just hate it that you have to deal with so much shit.”

“I could say the same to you,” Shou told you. “You get this distant, far-away look in your eyes every now and then, as if you’re somewhere else. I’m not sure where you go when that happens, but are you okay?”

You were surprised that he would bring it up. In all honesty, you knew that he had noticed by now, based upon everything you’ve ever known about him. No matter which person you think of him as, be it the quirky character Aizawa Shouta or your best friend Shou, you’ve picked up on the one thing that hasn’t changed at all throughout the years-- he’s always been extremely observant.

“I’m fine,” you gave him a reassuring smile, causing him to scan your face for any reason to doubt your answer. “I promise.”

“Alright… I know I’m not very good at expressing my feelings and stuff, but just know that if you ever need to talk, I’m always going to be here for you. And that’s my promise.”

When Shou got accepted to U.A., you weren’t shocked in the slightest. Everything appeared to be back on track for the impending plot of My Hero Academia . But what was surprising, was the fact that both you and Shouta were assigned to class 1-A. Upon hearing that, you couldn’t help but let out a snicker at the irony, causing Shou to give you an odd look.

“I just find it funny,” you know the boy can easily see through lies, so you settle on a half-truth. “We’ve been attending the same school since we were kids, yet this is the first time we’ve been in the same class.”

“At least this way I can keep you from falling asleep in class,” he says plainly.

“Oi, I don’t always fall asleep in class!” you defended. You also documented the future through memories of the series! Though, you couldn’t necessarily say that without looking like a loon. Not to mention that things like that are better kept as a secret, after all, you didn’t know how drastically your presence would affect things. “Besides, the only reason I did was because the material was easy and boring. This is something entirely new! If you think I’m going to fall asleep during class now, then you’re solemnly mistaken.”

“Uh-huh,” Shou’s eyes were filled with doubt.

“Besides, now I have you!” you flashed a smirk at him. “If I get bored, I can just bother you!”

“You don’t bother me, though,” your cheeks flushed at that statement.

“Let’s just hope you don’t change your mind after being stuck with me for the next three years,” you teased, and before he could respond a booming voice came from the classroom door.

“Hey, Class 1-A! Are you ready to be the greatest heroes of all- wait, where is everyone?!” you turned towards the door to see the new arrival looking around confused. With his blonde hair slicked up, and orange glasses concealing his eyes, you knew who he was in a minute: Present Mic. You’d almost forgotten that he was one of Shouta’s classmates.

“We’re the first ones here,” you informed him as you walked towards him, grabbing a hold of Shou’s hand and dragging him along with you when you saw he wasn’t moving. “I’m Fushichou Kaze, and this is Aizawa Shouta.”

“Hey,” Shou said, finally speaking up.

“The names Yamada Hizashi, it’s cool to meet you! It’s cool to have a network of Heroes, you know!”

As the three of you chatted, the other students started to fill into the classroom. Your eyes drifted towards the other students. You didn’t recognize them from the series. At least not yet, you didn’t know how age would affect these students, or if their identities were secret or public. Not to mention they could have been one of the extras.

You paused in your thoughts. Now you were starting to sound like Bakugo, and he wasn’t even born yet. Or was he? He was 16 during the main storyline, wasn’t he? And you’re 15 now, with another 15 years before the main story. So yeah, he’s been born. But you wouldn’t meet him for a while yet.

“Don’t you think, Fushichou?”

“I’m sorry, what?” you blinked, Yamada’s voice bringing you back to reality.

“That today marks the start of a totally new life! From here on out, we’ll be the heroes!”

“Oh, yeah! Definitely!” you agreed.

“Alright, everyone. Quiet down. You’re training to be heroes, so you should start acting like it.” Hearing that, the students all made their way to their seats, you, Shou, and Yamada included. You glanced towards the figure standing in the doorway. It was a tall, gray-haired man. You swear you’ve seen him before, but you couldn’t figure out why until you heard him speak again.

“My name is Gran Torino, and I’m your homeroom teacher.”

Holy shit. You couldn’t tell at first, but this was Gran Torino, back in his glory. Before his age had taken its toll and shrunk him down to the form you were familiar with.

The day passed by in a blur. You were so excited actually be at U.A. High School, attending it with Aizawa and Yamada. Though you knew this was your life now, you still found it hard to believe that you got to interact with once fictional characters. Or maybe their creator had actually been a part of their world, but somehow ended up in your own, much like how you ended up there.

The day was over before you knew it. The final bell had rung, and the students were dismissed and had begun heading home.

“Miss Fushichou, can you stay for a minute after class?” Gran Torino asked. You paused, why would he want to see you of all people?

Shouta noticed the exchange and stopped as well, looking back at you. You noticed this and smiled back at him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Shou,” you told him, and he nodded, looking back at Gran Torino one final time before heading out the door, leaving you alone with your teacher.

“I bet you’re wondering just who it was that provided you with your recommendation, aren’t you?” he asked, and your eyes widened.

“Wait, you?!” a smirk crossed his face, and you looked at him with confusion. “Why? You’ve never even meet me?!”

“Let’s just say you left quite the impression on a former pupil of mine.”

“Wait, seriously?!”

“Why are you so surprised?” he questioned. “You’ve got the potential to be a great hero, with the proper training.”

Oh, dear. These were going to be an interesting three years, weren’t they?

Chapter Text

Lesson Number One

“That took a lot longer than a few minutes.”

You jumped at the sudden voice and turned around. You had just finished talking with Gran Torino and had finally left the school. Lost in your thoughts, you completely missed your best friend, who was leaning on the wall next to the building’s entrance.

“You waited for me? Shou, I told you to go home.”

“No you didn’t, you told me you’d see me tomorrow,” he corrected.

“Same thing,” you huffed. “You should have listened to me, we’ve been talking for almost an hour! I can’t believe you waited that long.”

“I’ve waited longer for you before,” Shou reminded you as he picked up his backpack, which he had sat on the ground next to him. After lazily tossing it over his shoulder, the two of you began your journey home.

“Honestly,” he continued, “if you really want to be a pro hero, then we’ve got to start working on improving your timing. Otherwise, by the time you arrive at the battle, it’ll already be over.”

“My timing isn't that bad!” you defended, only to be shut down by a dubious look from your friend. “Okay, maybe it is. But I didn’t expect you to wait around for me this time.”

“You know that I’ll always wait for you,” Shou said blatantly, causing your face to go bright red.

“I— Shou! Ugh, you can’t just say stuff like that!”

“Why not? I meant it.”

“But someone might get the wrong idea!” And by someone, you were referring to yourself. But he didn’t need to know that.

“Why does that matter?” he inquired. “I wait around for you frequently enough that I’m pretty sure everyone’s noticed your problem with being punctual at this point.”

“That’s not…” you facepalmed. “I swear, for someone so smart, you’re kind of dumb.”

“Or maybe I just like messing with you. Who knows.”

“Shou…?” he couldn’t be, could he?

“Anyway,” he changed the subject, “what did Gran Torino want?”

“Oh my god, you won’t believe it! He was the one who recommended me for UA!”

“I figured as much when he asked to meet with you.”

“Huh?! Then why’d you ask?!”

“I just wanted to confirm my theory,” he informed you. “Though that still leaves the question as to what you did to impress a pro such as himself.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that he can just sense how awesome I am?” you winked at Shou, causing him to roll his eyes, causing you to pout at his action. “Meanie.”

“If you did something to attract his attention,” Shou explained, ignoring your comment, “then I’m just hoping you didn’t attract the attention of any villains as well.”

“It’s not like that,” you told the boy. “One of his former students saved me a while back, believe it or not.”

“Believe that someone saved you? Never.” Sarcasm laced his voice, and you playfully punched him.

“Not my fault that I attract trouble. Either way, I guess that I left a good enough impression on him that he told his teacher about me and got me a recommendation.”

“But that’s not all you talked about, is it? When you exited the UA, you had that dreamy look on for face again. Don’t tell me you have a crush on our teacher.”

“What? Ew, no.” Even though Gran Torino is in his prime now, whenever you think of him you see that small, old man from the series. And that wasn’t really your thing.

“Good,” Shou said without pause.

“Good?” you ask, raising your eyebrows at him.

“Yeah, that’d be annoying to have to deal with.” Knowing Shou, this was probably the best explanation you were going to get from him. Shaking your head, you continued your recollection of the events from earlier.

“And after he told me that my recommendation was from him, he offered me private training lessons.”

“What?” Shou asked in shock. “And did you agree?!”

“Of course! I’d be stupid not to. I mean, getting free extra training with a pro hero without having an internship?! Hell yeah!” Since All Might wasn’t a well known hero yet, you knew you wouldn’t be able to tell Shou the truth about why you wanted Gran Torino to be your tutor, since he trained the greatest hero of all time. So if you were serious about becoming a hero, training with him was your best bet. Plus maybe you’ll be able to see All Might again! You wanted to thank him properly for saving your life after you fell off the roof of your old school.

‘After all,’ you thought to yourself, ‘what better way to help Midoriya and the main cast in the future than to do this! I know this is going to suck, but it’ll be so worth it!’

“Are you sure about this?” Shou asked you carefully.

“You worry too much. I’ll be fine! After all, Gran Torino’s quirk is Jet, right?”

“Yeah, but-”

“And Jet let’s him propel himself and essentially fly. I can do that with my wind, I just know it! I just need a little more practice! And he’s the perfect person for the job!”

“Can’t you just learn how to fly from your mom?”

“What’s up with you?” you came to a halt in the middle of the sidewalk, causing Shou to come to a stop as well and look back at you. “Why are you acting so weird?”

“You’re the one acting weird,” he countered. “Why does it feel as though you’re always hiding something from me?”

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit. You knew Shou was observant by all means, but you thought you had been careful. This was bad. Very bad. You couldn’t tell him the truth… could you?!

“What do you mean by that?” Because that didn’t make you look any more suspicious. Your eyes locked with Shou’s, and you felt your heart skip a beat. You couldn’t stand the way he was looking at you, his eyes projecting a thousand emotions at once, something that he had been so good at hiding from you, but the main emotion that stuck out in those dark eyes of his was hurt.

“Nevermind. This was a dumb idea, just forget it.” Shou shook his head and turned away. “I’m going home, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“What?! Shou!”

“Just forget it,” he said as he put his hands in his pockets and walked off. You were debating on whether or not you should run after him, but by the time you had come to an internal consensus, he was already gone.

“Probably for the best…” you grumbled to yourself. If you had gone after him, no doubt you would have spilled everything to him. You weren’t sure why you were so determined to keep this a secret. Shou was your best friend, so why couldn’t you trust him?

Was it because you didn’t think he would believe you? Or was it because you didn’t want him to blame you if things get ruined in the future because of you? Or for him to hate you when there are some things you won’t be able to change. Or maybe it was because you were worried if he learned he was a fictional character, it would cause him to lose all regard for his personal well being because he’s not real.

‘ No, ’ you corrected. ‘He’s real. He’s real, and I just hurt him because I’m too big of a coward to tell him the truth.’

You let out a curse and kicked a trash can, your wind quirk activating and sending it literally flying in the opposite direction. Guess life doesn’t get any easier the second time around, huh?

You turn back to the direction you were originally walking, only to realise that when you two had stopped, it had only been around twenty feet or so from your apartment complex.
“Of course he still managed to walk me home.”

After what happened, you knew things would be awkward between you and Shou the next day at school. You even left for school early to avoid seeing him, only to run into a different familiar face when you entered the classroom, causing you to fall onto the ground.

“Sorry!” a loud voice exclaimed, and the next thing you know, a hand grabs yours and hoisted you back up moments after you realised you were on the ground to begin with. “I didn’t think anyone else would be here this early!”

“I could say the same to you, Yamada. What are you doing here?” Yamada steps aside so you could see the classroom passed him, which was now covered in flyers with Yamada’s face plastered on it. “What the fuck?”

“I overheard that there are elections for class president during the first few days of the year from the upperclassmen! So I figured what better way to get people to vote for me from posters! Pretty sweet, huh?”

“The election hasn’t even been announced yet,” you reminded.

“Exactly! So imagine when the election is announced! The first thought that pops into everyone’s head will be of me! And no one will want to run against me because they’ll all know how serious I am about this! It’s genius! Unless, don’t tell me… were you here for the same reason, Fushichou?!”

“Not at all,” you told the blonde. As crazy as his plan was, you did have to give him points for creativity. You never would have guessed that he wanted to be class president after seeing him in the anime. Though you supposed it made sense, he did like all eyes to be on him.

“Then what are you doing here? Wait, where’s your boyfriend?”

“H-huh? Shou’s not my boyfriend!” you felt your face heat up, as you looked at the boy in front of you. Did you and Shou give off the impression you two were an item?! I mean, yeah your mom teased you about it, but you didn’t actually think you two looked like a couple!

“Oh? Is there trouble in paradise?” he questioned, and you can’t tell if he was teasing or being sincere.

“There’s no trouble because there’s no paradise,” you insisted. “Me and Shou are just friends.”

“If you’re just friends, then why’s your face red as a tomato right now?” Yamata smirked at you. “Don’t worry, Fushichou, your secret’s safe with me.”

The second those words left Yamata’s mouth was the exact second that Shou walked into the classroom. If looks could kill, you would be dead right now.

‘ Great,’ you thought bitterly. ‘ Now not only does Shou know I have a secret, but now he thinks that I told Yamada the secret a day after knowing him. Thanks a lot.’

“H-hey, Shou,” you greeted, walking over to him against your better judgement. God, he doesn’t even need to have his quirk active for his eyes to make you feel powerless. “I just, uh, wanted to tell you that I won’t be able to walk home with you today. I-I have my first training lesson tonight. So, um, I’ll be here really late. You don’t have to, uh, wait around. Okay?”

Shou just looked at you skeptically before going to his seat, laying his head down on his arms and closing his eyes. God, you really fucked up this time, didn’t you?

 “To your left!” Gran Torino called out to you as you redirected a tennis ball coming towards you with a well-placed gust of wind.

“Got it!”

For your first private lesson, Gran Torino wanted to get a proper assessment of your powers by seeing what all you’ve learned to do so far. So in order to test this out, he put you in the center of multiple tennis ball machines, having them all shoot tennis balls at you at the same time from different directions. So far, you showed him that you could use your quirk of wind manipulation to shove items away from you, as well as to increase your own speed. Lucky for you, he only had the speed set half-way on all of the machines, so they were coming at you fast, but so far you’ve managed to avoid being hit. Or so you thought.

“Not enough, you’re too slow!”

“Too slow?! But I haven’t gotten hit yet!” You glanced over at Gran Torino, only for him to no longer be standing where he was a second before.

“I just turned the setting to max. Try to keep up.”

The next thing you knew, you were being hit by tennis balls in multiple directions. You shot yourself up off the ground and tried your best to make yourself hover, whist attempting to ignore the feeling of the new bruises starting to form on your body.

“There’s no way I can dodge all of those!” you shouted to the man.

“Nonsense! What are your instincts telling you to do?!”

Your instincts? Your instincts were telling you to get the hell out of there, but you knew you couldn’t do that. Heros don’t turn tail and run when things get rough. They throw themselves into the fray and improvise, right?

“What are the odds this time goes better than the first two?” you ask yourself as you prepare. Knowing you don’t have the energy to keep yourself hovering forever, you spin yourself midair and let yourself drop, having the winds pick up around you instead of under you, once again forming a tornado around yourself. You were starting to feel dizzy, but you had to push through. You saw green balls start to join into your tornado, so you just had to shoot them out of your tornado at the perfect time…

But considering you couldn’t see passed your tornado, you were just going to have to shoot them off all at once.

Your spin came to a sudden halt as you dispersed the winds that were previously surrounding you outwards in all directions. A sudden pain surged through your head and your hands shot up, clutching it as you collapsed to your knees in pain.

“Holy shit,” you heard Gran Torino say right before everything went black.

 There was still a sharp pain in your head when you came to. You cursed as your hand went up to your head, clutching it again. It took a few moments for you the events leading up to you passing out. Truth be told, you felt like you had just awoken from some sort of weird drunken dream with the world's worst hangover. But when you finally opened your eyes, and saw the familiar green walls of the school’s infirmary, you knew that was still real, much to your relief. As stupid as you knew it was, despite living in this world for the past 15 years, you still had the worry that one day you would just wake up from a coma back in your own world.

“Good, you’re finally awake,” you heard a feminine voice say, and you slowly sat up to look at her. She was an older woman, her black hair that was streaked heavily with silver was pulled back into a tight bun. She straightened out her lab coat as she picked up her clipboard, making a few notes on it. “Overexertion, not much I can do to help that since my quirk can only heal you using the energy that you have.”

“Are you…?”

“Ah, how rude of me not to introduce myself. I am Recovery Girl, my dear. How are you feeling?”

“My head hurts, but I’ll live. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, I didn’t do anything but keep an eye on you. It was Gran Torino who brought you here, said that you passed out during your training exercise. Honestly, that man should know better than to take on first year students as prodigy's. He’ll never learn.”

“Where is he, anyway?” you ask, surprised the man wasn’t around. How long were you unconscious for?

“He ran into one of your classmates when he was taking you here, who wasn’t very happy with the condition you were in. Once he got you to me, he took off, saying something about having to take one of his students home before they could do something stupid.”

There were only two guesses that came to mind, and you weren’t sure which was the more likely candidate. Shou was still pissed, but he was still your best friend. But he should be long gone by now. Meanwhile, Hizashi has only just met you, but he seems to view you as a friend already. Not to mention he’s already proven to you that he just hangs around the school when it’s not in session.

“Do you know which student it was?”

“I don’t, I’m sorry. But he should be back soon, you can ask him about it when he is. I’m going to check your vitals quick though, if you don’t mind. Just want to make sure that you’re good and healthy.”

After Recovery Girl took your vitals, she left you alone with your thoughts while she went to check some things. You were so lost in your head, that you almost didn’t notice Gran Torino come in until you saw his shadow in the doorway.

“Sorry I passed out,” you told him. Not how you had hoped that your first training session would have went.

“Do you have any idea what you did before you passed out?” he asked you.

“Oh no, I did something wrong didn’t I? I knew that I shouldn’t have tried that tornado trick, it’s never ended well for me. I’m so sorry I-”

“Stop,” he commanded, and you quickly shut your mouth, “don’t apologise, you did nothing wrong. Look, the whole reason we did that was to get an assessment of your quirk, and I think we accomplished that goal.

“Though you have a powerful quirk, it has its limits. And when you reach or surpass those limits, it takes its toll on you physically, to the point it knocks you unconscious. Based upon my observations, in order for you to manipulate the air current around you, you have to constantly be moving your body in the way you want the wind to go, pushing or pulling you want the direction the wind to go. That makes your attacks predictable to anyone paying attention to your movements, as well as making your movements limited if you’re exhausting your quirk to do a certain action, such as hovering. If I would have alternated the angle of the tennis ball shooter to aim higher, you wouldn’t have been able to move any of your limbs in order to protect your core, leaving you wide open.

“We’re going to have to work on your technique, but you definitely have potential.” Gran Torino looked down at you with a faint smile on his face while you looked back in shock. After him telling you all your weaknesses, that was not what you were expecting to hear. “I can see why you caught my student’s attention.”

“You’re student… All Might… where is he? I haven’t seen him since the day he saved me.”

“Ah, yes. You’re quite lucky, honestly. He was only back in Japan for a few days. He’s not living in the country at the moment.”

“He’s not?” You actually didn’t know that. Though, the series was always kind of vague in the timeline considering All Might. Though, if you think about All Might’s attacks, it made sense. They were all named after different locations in the United States, so that’s where he must be.

“Yeah, there are a lot of dangerous people in this world, Fushichou. And sometimes, in order to keep people we care about safe, we sometimes do things that we don’t want to do.” You nod your head, listening to Gran Torino’s words.

“So that’s why he left?”

“Among other things.”

“Say, when am I allowed to leave this infirmary?”

 Aizawa Shota is many things, but he is not a liar. Sure, he’s not below doing rational deception’s when he deems the cause just, but he is not a liar. At least, not to those he cares about.

So when he told you that he would always wait for you, he meant it. Even if you don’t want to be honest with him yourself, even if he’s mad at you, he won’t back down on his word.

He knew you were doing your special training lessons with Gran Torino today. You had told him yourself, however you didn’t mention where or for how long, so he decided to just do what he did last time and wait for you on the entrance staircase. He was expecting you to be a little worn out by the time you were finished training. But he was not expecting to see Gran Torino jumping through the air, carrying your unconscious body in his arms as he ran towards the infirmary.

“Kaze!” Shou exclaimed, running towards you after Gran Torino landed on the ground in front of the school. “What the hell did you do to her?!”

“Nothing, she overextended her power limits and passed out. I’m taking her to Recovery Girl now, don’t worry, kid!”

“Don’t worry?! Bullshit, I’ve sparred with her dozens of times before and she’s never passed out before from overusing her quirk. What the hell did you do with her?!”

“Basic quirk assessment training.”

“How the hell does basic quirk assessment training involve someone fainting?!”

Instead of responding, Gran Torino jetted himself down the hall with the girl continuing on to the infirmary. Gran Torino returned a few moments later with the girl missing from his arms.

“Let’s just get you home, she just needs a good rest and she’ll be fine,” Gran Torino started leading the boy to the exit, but Shou just glared at him.

“I can get home myself. I just want to know what’s going on. Kaze said that she got her recommendation from you because she was saved by a former student of yours. If that’s true, and I believe that she thinks it is, why would you two recommend her of all people? Don’t get me wrong, she definitely deserves to be here. But if your first and from my guess, only impression of someone was based solely on the time you saved them, then there would be a lot more people dying in the hero programme because they’re not capable of being here.”

“Are you saying you don’t think your friend’s capable of being here?” Gran Torino inquired.

“No, I’m saying that you don’t seem like the kind of person who would so easily send someone you didn’t know to their death. So that means there’s something about Kaze that made you choose her in particular as your recommendation. And I want to know what.”

Gran Torino laughed.

“You’re a smart boy, aren’t you? Why do you even want to know so badly?”

“If I tell you, will you tell me?”

 After you were discharged by Recovery Girl, you made straight for Shou’s house. You knew he was probably still pissed, and you wouldn’t blame him. And although you couldn’t tell him everything, you still wanted to make things right with him. He’s been by your side for the past ten years. You owe him that much, and a lot more.

You rehearsed what you would say over and over in your head until you finally came up with something that you liked. Once you finally arrived at his house, you went around back and tapped on his bedroom window, not wanting to knock on the front door, knowing that his mom was probably asleep by now. It wasn’t anything unusual for the two of you to do, since both of you had a bad habit of staying up too late anyway, you often ended up finding yourselves sitting in each other’s bedrooms enjoying late night movie sessions.

Deciding he probably didn’t hear you the first time, you knocked on the window again. When you were about to leave, worried he was gone or already asleep, the curtain shifted and you saw a disheveled looking Shou looking back at you. He locked eyes with you for a split second before he opened up the latch on his window and sliding it open, offering a hand to help pull you in. After you climbed through the window and got yourself back onto your feet, you two locked eyes again.

“We need to talk.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 5 - The Truth Comes At A Price

“We need to talk.”

The words left Shou’s mouth before you had a chance to speak, and you looked at him in concern. He was starting to resemble that of his future self: his black locks were messier than usual, he had bags starting to form under his eyes and a serious expression plastered his face. You knew instantly something wasn’t right.

“Look, if this is about yesterday I came to-”

“You’re in danger,” Shou informed you, cutting you off.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“That’s why Gran Torino recommended you for the UA. That’s why he’s giving you private lessons . Apparently it’s to keep you safe.” You couldn’t believe what you were hearing.

“Keep me safe? From what?!” Shou gave you a look of confusion that matched your own as the question left your mouth. Why would you be in danger? No one knew the truth about you, not even Shou! “This doesn’t make any sense!”

“Wait… you don’t know either, do you?”

“Know what?! Shou, you’re starting to freak me out!”

“Tell me everything you know about your father,” Shou instructed you, and you furrowed your eyebrows. Your dead father? What does he have to do with this?

“All I know is that he died when my mom was pregnant, and he has the same quirk as me, which he inherited from his father. Why? Are you telling me he has something to do with this?!” Shou nodded with a solemn look on his face.

“Fushichou Yusuke, code name Zenith, was a hero who was acting undercover as a villain in order to gain insight on the menace known as All For One in hope of figuring out how to defeat him. But All For One somehow found out about his true allegiance and murdered him.

“Apparently Zenith was acting under orders from the UA. He was another student under Gran Torino, and had also worked with the student who had saved you.” Your father worked with All Might and Gran Torino?! You couldn’t believe it. No wonder you caught All Might’s attention. He recognised your quirk! He must have told Gran Torino about it after witnessing it, who then decided to recommend you to the UA in order to keep an eye on you. It made sense, in a way. But why were they keeping it a secret? Were they ever planning on telling you? Who else knew? You had so many questions racing through your head, you could barely pinpoint one that Shou might actually have an answer to..

“But what does this have to do with me?” you questioned once you had finally made up your mind on what to ask first.

“All For One managed to somehow find out about your father’s true identity after he had already infiltrated his inner circles,” Shou continued. “Zenith had collected valuable information because he had All For One’s trust. But things went wrong, and All For One found out about his allegiance against him. I don’t know how, but there’s one thing for certain: All For One has a vendetta against your father because of his betrayal. If he learned about your existence, then no doubt he would go after you too.”

“...why go after a dead man’s daughter though?” you couldn’t help but ask. It didn’t make any sense to you, your father was long dead. If it was to hurt him, it wouldn’t work. Your father hasn’t exactly felt anything for the past 15 years.

“To send a message,” Shou told you, but considering that his voice was losing it’s sharp edge and turning into the softer one that you had become accustomed to, you felt as though it was more of a guess than anything. “It's to say that if you choose to go against him, and not only will you suffer, but also the ones you hold dear. There’s a reason why he’s known as one of the worst villains in history, Kaze. He’s a sick bastard.”

You nodded in agreement, your whole body going numb as Shou’s words continued to sink into your skin. You couldn’t believe this. Your father, whom you knew almost nothing about, turned out to not only be a fellow student of Gran Torino and a teammate of All Might, but he also played an important role in the All For One investigation. How could your mom keep something like this from you, especially considering your own safety was on the line! Did she even know?! But more importantly…

“How do you know about all of this?”

“Gran Torino,” Shou informed you, his eyes finally breaking away from yours, guilt slowly clouding his features. “I saw him today after your training lesson.”

Oh. So that answers the question of which student ran into Gran Torino earlier. The pieces were finally starting to line up.

“Why didn’t they tell me?” you thought out loud, causing Shou’s gaze to finally drift back to you. You could feel your body start to tremble, and you couldn’t tell if it was from fear or anger. Hell, maybe it was both. “If my safety is in danger, then I feel as though I have the right to know.”

“I think it’s because they didn’t want you to panic,” Shou offered, cautiously taking a step towards you. “Gran Torino said that the UA erased all information of your father before he went undercover. So even though All For One knew your father wasn't who he claimed, it'd be almost impossible to find out anything about his personal life. There's no guarantee that he even knows you exist.”

“But there’s no reason why we shouldn’t assume he does!” you argued. Your vision started to blur as your eyes began to water. “Shou, you said it yourself, All For One is a sick bastard. If he knew my father was a hero from the get-go, then there’s no way he would have let him gather any intel that could be used against him. So he had to have learned later, right?! That means that somebody probably ended up selling him out. But who and why?! What else did they know about him? What if they do to me what they did to my father?!”

“That won’t happen because I won’t let it,” Shou gently raised his hands and cupped your cheeks. You were still shaking, but his sudden touch snapped you back to reality. The reality that right now it was just you and Shou. Finally becoming aware of his closeness, you stared into his onix eyes trying to get a read on the boy. “Don’t forget, you’re not alone. I’m training to become a hero too. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Shou,” you didn’t even realise you were moving forwards until you found yourself just centimeters away from his face, your heart racing from the close proximity.“All For One is the most powerful villain there is, do you really think that we have a chance? We just started at the UA...”

“We have time,” Shou breathed out, as if he too had just realised how close the two of you had become. “If he hasn’t made any moves yet, then I don’t think he knows about you. And when he finds out, we’ll be ready.”

Your gaze flickered from his eyes to his lips, and you couldn’t help but wonder how they would feel on yours. You pushed the thought from your mind as quickly as it had come. Shou was your best friend, he’s been with you since the very beginning of this life. Was this really a line you could cross? You’ve been together through thick and thin. Did you really want to jeopardize such an incredible friendship over teenage hormones? You remembered your old life, how in high school you thought that every boyfriend was the one, only to be proven wrong each time. Just knowing that in itself should have been enough to completely deter you from the idea. Yet something in your heart was telling you that things would be different with Shou than it had with any of your failed teenage romances from your first life.

As you were having this internal debate with yourself, it had seemed as though Shou had already reached a decision on the matter. Shou’s lips landed on yours, and you felt your eyes widen in surprise. If you were being honest, you weren’t expecting Shou to be the one who initiated the first move. But here it was. Shou was kissing you.

You wrapped your arms around his neck, returning the kiss gently as you closed your eyes. In this moment, you were not Fushichou Kaze and he was not Aizawa Shota. You were just you and him. (Y/N) and Shou. There wasn’t anyone you had to pretend to be in this moment. And as long as you were together, you knew that there was no way that All For One would pose a threat to you.

If only you knew how wrong you were.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

A groan escaped your mouth as your arm found its way out from underneath your covers to the snooze button on your alarm clock.

“Shut up,” you told it, as you rolled over, trying to get a few extra moments of sleep.

Exhaustion weighed down your entire body as the events from last night replayed once again in your mind. You were hardly able to get any sleep at all last night. Between your training session with Gran Torino which ended with you unconscious, to Shou telling you the truth about your father, as well as the kiss that you two had shared.

You subconsciously raised your fingers to your lips as that memory resurfaced in your head. It was hard to believe it wasn’t all just a dream. Yesterday, so many things had come to light. And today, you had to deal with the consequences that followed.

First of all, you had to deal with confronting Gran Torino about your father. You suspected he knew that Shou would tell you, so you weren’t sure how worried you should be about approaching him about that. You just have to hope he wouldn’t try convincing you to back out of the hero programme for fear of All For One witnessing your quirk at the Sports Festival that takes place later in the year. You found it kind of funny, you hadn’t even gotten your hero costume yet, or your hero name chosen, but you were worried about the upcoming Sports Festival. Shou would tell you to stop getting so ahead of yourself if he could hear you right now.

Your face heating up as you thought about Shou. What had transpired between the two of you last night was the second thing in which you had to deal with the consequences today. After you two kissed, you were in so much of a daze that you couldn’t clearly remember what had happened. All of the events of the day had finally caught up to you. You couldn’t remember much after the kiss, but you recalled Shou taking you back to your house all while avoiding eye contact with you. You weren’t sure if he regretted kissing you or if he was just embarrassed of doing so, though if you had to bet, you would choose the latter.

Still, that still posed the awkward talk today about what happened yesterday. Did Shou actually have feelings for you, or did he just get overwhelmed with emotions over learning the truth about your father? Would he still think you were hiding something?

Yesterday, you had thought that you would be able to tell him the truth about your rebirth, or at least part of it. But after what had transpired, you weren’t sure if you wanted to do anything that would cause him to see you in a different light. You weren’t sure when it had happened, but if you were being honest, you had fallen for the boy. You had always liked his character, sure, but after meeting him all those years ago, you learned there was a lot more to him than meets the eye.

He bites his lips when he’s scared and he clenches his fists when he’s mad. He eats his fries with mustard and mayonnaise and whenever you two are walking on the sidewalk, he makes sure he’s on the side closer to the road to protect you from anybody driving over the curb because he knew that cars made you a bit nervous. He does all these simple, mundane things that most people would easily just dismiss. But for some reason, you found everything that he did endearing. All the sparring sessions you two had, all of the late night talks, all the vague jokes that only made sense to the two of you. You loved all of it. You just really hoped that things wouldn’t be too awkward between the two of you now.

Letting out another yawn, you finally sat up in your bed, stretching. Nothing would be solved by staying in bed all day, you decided.

Classes passed by slowly that day. Shou hadn’t come to school, and if you had to guess, you’d say that he probably overslept. It was into the early hours of the morning by the time he had walked you back home, and considering that he had to return to his house afterwards couldn’t have made things any easier on the poor boy. You did offer to let him stay at your place, telling him that he could sleep in your bed and you would take the couch. He refused, of course. Stubborn bastard. Either way, he hadn’t gotten back to you since he had left last night. You hoped he was alright, you would have to stop by tonight after school was over.

You already had to wait until school was over to confront Gran Torino about the truth behind your father. You didn’t want the risk of any other students or faculty overhearing you in case they were the ones who ratted out Zenith.

Based upon what you knew about All For One, and what Shou had told you about your father, you had come to the conclusion that they wouldn't send just anyone undercover to spy on All For One. They needed to send someone who was composed enough to not crack under pressure and adaptive enough to avoid arousing suspicion if they were to spy on one of the world’s most deadly supervillains. That being said, you doubted your father was the kind of man who would blow his own cover. Which meant that the probability of a double agent being in the midst of the UA was remarkably high. You just had to figure out who had been here fifteen years ago who might have had something to gain by revealing such information.

But all of that could wait. Your priority right now was to just get through your classes for today in order to confront Gran Torino about your father. But time was moving unnervingly slowly. So once the final bell signalled classes were over, you made a beeline to your homeroom teacher’s desk. As soon as you were about to open your mouth to speak, Gran Torino raised his hand as if to say “not yet”. His eyes darted to the last few students leaving the classroom, before getting up and heading to the door. He looked back to you, and nodded his head towards the entrance. You tightened the grip on your school bag and followed him. It seemed as though Gran Torino had the same suspicions that you had about the UA not being the safest place to talk about your father.

As you followed the older man through the corridors, you couldn’t help but go through different questions in your head. You had so many questions, and Gran Torino was probably the one who had the questions to most of them. There were still some that you couldn’t ask, such as if the reason you were reborn as Fushichou Kaze had something to do with who her father was, or if that was just a coincidence. But this was one thing you would probably never get an answer for, since the thought itself sounded utterly insane, despite the fact there were literally superheroes and villains in this world.

Gran Torino finally came to a halt when you reached the roof, and you felt the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The last time you had been on a rooftop, you had fallen off and nearly died. Though, you knew that All Might more likely than not told Gran Torino about the circumstances regarding your meeting, so you figured Gran Torino wouldn’t be dragging you up here unless he truly felt this was the best place to discuss things.

“The boy told you, I take it?”

“Of course he did,” you blatantly said. “We tell each other everything.”

‘Well,’ you thought to yourself, ‘almost everything.’

“I see, and I suppose you have questions?” the subject itself already had you tense, but the fact that Gran Torino was approaching this so casually made your skin crawl. But he seemed willing to at least answer your questions, nonetheless, so you just had to figure out where to start.

“Were you ever planning on telling me?”

“Eventually,” he informed you. “I was actually hoping we would have the situation with All For One under control before we had to have this discussion, in all honesty.”

“Who else knows?”

“Me and Principal Nezu are the only two still alive that were directly involved with the operation, so we’re the only two who know the entire story. All Might knows bits and pieces from his involvement with me and from having worked with Zenith a few times in the past.”

 “Does… does my mom know anything about this?” you asked, and Gran Torino let out a sigh.

“I’m afraid not, it was too risky. We didn’t want her to be a liability.”

“A liability?!” you clenched your fists in anger at his reveal. “Are you freaking kidding me?! Her husband is dead because of you!” Though she wasn’t your original mother, she was your mother in this life. And she was a fantastic one at that, she didn’t deserve any of this.

“If we had told her the truth of what happened, she would have demanded justice be done. She would more likely than not let it slip to someone that her husband got killed by All For One, and if it got back to him that Yusuke had a family, there’s no doubt in my mind he would have killed you both. This was safer.”

“So what? Did you seriously let her believe that her husband was swayed to the dark side and joined up with the villains while she was expecting?!” What kind of Star Wars shit was this? Were your parents seriously supposed to be the Anakin and Padme of the My Hero Academia world?

“That isn’t what happened, you fool!” Gran Torion snapped at you. “When All Might’s former teacher was killed by All For One, his main focus was on getting revenge on the one responsible. After I took him under my wing, he formed a bond with my former prodigy, Zenith. When the opportunity arose to go undercover to gather intel on All For One, All Might was eager to jump at the opportunity. But he wasn’t even done with high school yet. We couldn’t let him throw his life away by doing something he wasn’t ready for. So your father volunteered for the mission instead, knowing full well what danger it held.

“We created a new identity for him, under the alias Stormbreaker. We completely erased Zenith’s identity from public record in order to prevent anybody putting things together. If anyone found out that they were the same person as Fushichou Yusuke, everyone related to him would be in danger. He had acquired crucial information against All For One, information that will hopefully take him down in the near future!”

“But how did he get caught?! If you were as careful as you say you were, he shouldn’t have gotten caught! There has to have been a mole somewhere in all of this! Someone else had to have gotten involved in this for him to have gotten caught, so there’s something that you’re not telling me!”

“Look, that’s the part we don’t know. You’re right to assume there’s a mole somewhere in this, but we don’t know where. That’s why we’ve been trying to keep this whole thing under wraps. We can’t risk them finding out about your relation to Zenith. If anyone were to find out, you would be in danger.”

“So, why recommend me to the UA in the first place then?” you inquired. The tension in the air was thick enough to be cut by a butter knife as the words left your mouth. “It’s easily in the public’s eyes, or at the very least, it’s in the viewpoint of the one who sold out my father. So if your thought was to bring me here to keep me safe, then I’m sorry, but you’re probably bringing more attention than you’re preventing by having me here.”

“I know. But tell me, if someone were to approach you and tell you that you couldn’t become a pro hero, would you have listened to them?”

You were clenching your fists so tightly at this point that your fingernails pierced into your skin and caused blood to surface. You hated the fact that Gran Torino was right about this. If anyone had come up to you and told you that you couldn’t become a pro hero, you would have flipped them off. If someone who was quirkless like Midoriya Izuku could become a pro hero in the future, then there was no reason why someone like you couldn’t become a pro hero in the present. But still, you were hoping that Gran Torino had been telling you the truth when you had first spoken to him. That you had impressed All Might. That you did have potential. You didn’t just want to be here to be babysat to make sure you didn’t do anything stupid to catch All For One’s attention.

“So, now that I know… what does that mean? Are you going to tell me that I have to quit the hero programme for my own protection?”

“On the contrary, Fushichou. That just means that from this point onwards, shit get’s real.”

Chapter Text

“Come on, Shou. Talk to me.”

You puffed out your cheeks as all you got in reply was a muffled groan as the boy readjusted his position on the desk he was currently half asleep on. It’s been a week since you two kissed, and the boy was gone from school the entire time. This was the first day that he’s been back. Well, physically at least.

“Shooooou,” you pouted, poking at his cheek. He shook his head at the sudden touch, causing his hair to fall over his face, completely obscuring your vision of the boy. “Yer killlin’ me here.”

“I think you broke him,” Yamada commented, glancing over as he picked up his bag. The only positive part about Shou’s absence was that you were able to get closer with the blond*, finally feeling confident enough to say that Yamada was a friend.

“He’s been like this all day,” you informed him, looking back at Shou worried. When he had arrived at school this morning, you were ecstatic considering that he was gone for so long. He hadn’t even been answering any of your texts or phone calls. You even went to his house to make sure he hadn’t died, but nobody was home. You hadn’t been able to properly talk about your kiss, or of your plans for All For One, or of what Gran Torino had talked with you about, and you were beginning to think that something had happened to him, and were fully prepared to send a search party (which consisted of you, Yamada and one of his other friends, a boy named Shirakumo Oboro) if there was still no sign of him in a few days.

Your luck seemed to have finally turned around when you saw Shou walk into class today. However, the first thing he did when he arrived was plant his head on his desk and nap. He hadn’t acknowledge you in the slightest, which worried you. Not to mention the fact that when you two went from class to class, he had simply carried himself along like a zombie, before proceeding to sleep in the next class, and the one following. The cycle continued on until the very end of the school day. And even now, despite having spent pretty much the entire day sleeping, he was still unresponsive.

“Is he alright?” a new voice asked, and you glanced over to the speaker. There stood a girl, who was giving you a curious look. She twirled a lock of her curly, dark red hair between her fingers. Behind her stood a tan boy, his arms crossed and eyebrow raised as his piercing blue eyes looked at the scene before them.

“Uhh…” you were suddenly very self-conscious of the audience in front of you. You had never spoken to these two before, in fact, you hadn’t even learned their names. Though, the school year had technically just started, but you couldn’t help but feel a bit bad. You had only been focusing on Shou and Yamada, the two that you had recognised as characters from the series. But this was real life, and these were real people. It wasn’t fair of you to just ignore everyone else and treat them as extras.

Fuck. You really were starting to sound like Bakugo. Whatever, maybe when you got older, you would also become a teacher at the U.A. and take Bakugo under your wing and help him become a little less of an asshole. Maybe.

“Actually, are you alright?” the red-head girl’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts, and you laughed sheepishly. You hadn’t realised you’d been silent for so long.

“I-I’m fine! I’m just worried about Shou. I’ve never seen him like this before. He hadn’t been to class all week either...”

“Maybe I can help,” the girl gave you a sympathetic smile, “my dad’s a psychologist so I’ve learned a thing or two growing up.” At that declaration, the male behind her snorted.

“That’s one word for it,” the boy mocked, but instead of getting upset over his comment, the girl just looked over at him and smiled.

“You know you love it,” she winked at him, causing his face to go bright red as he looked away.

“You wish, you’re just annoying, that’s all!”

“Yet, you still hang around me like a lost puppy. It’s cute.”

“D-don’t call me cute, bitch!”

“I call you puppy, you call me bitch. A bitch is a pregnant female dog, so does that mean you see me as some sort of maternal figure in your life, Kiba-kun?”

“Oh my god, no, just please just the fuck up.” Yamada and you watched the exchanged dumbfounded.

“Do you have any idea what’s happening?” you whispered to Yamada, who just shrugged. The red-head must have finally remembered that you two (well, three, but Shou was still in a state of unresponsiveness) were right there, because she turned back to you and giggled.

“Sorry about that, where are my manners? My name’s Tsubuan Ana, and this ball-of-sunshine behind me is Koshian Kiba.”

“I can introduce myself,” as Tsubuan looked at him expectantly, a smile still on her face, he just huffed. “What she said.”

“I’m Fushichou Kaze,” you introduced yourself, before glancing down at the still-sleeping Shou, “and that’s Aizawa Shota.”

“Yo!” Yamada exclaimed, appearing to be happy that he could finally join in the conversation. “The names Yamada Hizashi, future class president!”

“I admire that confidence, but isn’t it rather bold to claim something that you don’t know for certain yet?” Tsubuan enquired, causing Koshian to roll his eyes.

“Just because you can see the future doesn’t mean that you can lecture people on it.”

“Huh?! You can see the future?!” Yamada exclaimed, jumping over the desk and landing in front of Tsubuan. If he wasn’t wearing sunglasses, you would almost be certain he would have stars in his eyes. It was also then that you heard Shou start to stir.

“Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that-”

“Do I win the class election?! Do I become a pro-hero?! Do I become famous?!”

“Yamada, calm down,” you sweatdropped.

“Sorry, Hizashi-kun, but I can’t answer those questions,” Tsubuan flashed him an apologetic smile. “That’s not how my quirk works, or else I would. Promise.”

“Having a future-telling quirk,” Shou finally sat up, stretching his back, having it let out a loud crack, before he glanced at the red-head in front of him for the first time, “must be pretty useful. Mind explaining to us how it works?”

“Sorry, cutie,” you tried to ignore that comment directed at Shou, but you still found your hand clenched into a fist, “but with the way my quirk works, I really can’t go around telling everyone or else when we finally do training exercises, I’ll be at a major disadvantage.”

“I understand,” Shou replied, cooly.

“Ana, we should probably get going,” Koshian stated, looking at the watch on his wrist. You glanced at his hands for the first time and noticed that they were concealed by a pair of gloves, which was worn underneath the watch as well. You found that a bit odd, but then you remembered that you were in a world full of people who had quirks. It probably had something to do with that, right? “We’re running late.”

“Right,” Tsubuan agreed. “It was nice to meet you, Haizashi-kun and Kaze-chan. And I’m glad to see you’re finally awake, Shota-kun. Until next time, orevuar.” With that said, Tsubuan and Koshian left the classroom, leaving you and Yamada processing what just happened and Shou with a look of unamusement on his face.

“Well they seemed… nice?” You weren’t quite sure what to make of those two, in all honesty. They seemed a bit weird, but they didn’t seem as though they had any malicious intent. Maybe learning the truth behind your father and that the probable worst villain in recorded history could be after you had you a bit on edge of others.

“Keep your guard up,” Shou stated. If you were a bit on edge, then Shou would have to qualify for being the edge.

“They seemed harmless enough,” Yamata chimed in, only to be silenced by Shou’s glare. “Aight, Aizawa’s in scary mode right now, got it! Yamada Hizashi out! Bye Fushichou!”

You watched Yamata’s figure quickly leave the room with amusement. Yamata was one of the only ones who seemed at ease with Aizawa in the series, so it was incredibly amusing to see him so intimidated by the long haired boy. You glanced over at Shou, who had finally gotten up from his chair, stretching his full body. The bags under his eyes were intense.

“Did you have a good nap?”

“Meh,” was the reply you got.

“Shou…?”

“What?” his voice sounded so sharp that you couldn’t help but flinch. Though the voice was familiar, it didn’t sound like your Shou.

“I-I can’t… I mean… you…”

Ugh! You weren’t going to get anywhere if you kept tripping over your words. You took a deep breath to compose yourself, before trying again.

“You’re being weird. Like, really weird. I can tell something’s up, but I can’t help if you don’t talk to me about it.”

“I’m sorry,” Shou looked down, a look of contemplation on his face about whether he wanted to confide in you or not.

“You’ve been there for me through so much,” you gently urged him, “at least let me be here for you too. Please.”

“Kaze…”

“Look, if this is about the kiss…” your eyes find their way looking anyway but at Shou, finally settling on an empty gum wrapper on the floor next to the waste bin, “if you regret it then we can just pretend like it never happened. All I want is for you to be happy, I don’t want to ruin our friendship over it. You mean too much to me for that.”

“Do you regret it?” At that question, your eyes widened as you turned back to him.

“Do I… what? No, never! Shou--”

“Then I don’t. If you don’t regret it, neither do I.” His answer was firm, as he finally made eye contact with you again.

“But then why have you been avoiding me? You haven’t answered my calls or my texts… Shou, I’ve been worried as shit about you.” Shou shut his eyes and sighed, before taking a step towards you and pulling you into a tight embrace, burying his face into your hair. You hugged him back, surprised by his sudden action. But what took you even more by surprise was the soft sob that came out of his mouth.

“My mom’s in the hospital…” he finally breathed out, causing you to tighten your hold on him.

“Oh my god, Shou I’m so sorry,” you rubbed comforting circled on his back as he continued to sob softly into your hair.

“The doctors don’t know if she’s going to make it…”

She didn’t.

 It was a sunny day when Aizawa Ai’s funeral was held. Though you should be grateful that the weather was fair, you couldn’t help but feel wrong. It was on days like these that you and Shou had training sessions. It was on days like these you would tease each other over silly, dumb things that didn’t matter the next day. It was on days like these you would go to the shore and skip rocks, and Shou would call you out on using your quirk to make your rock skip more than his. But now, it was also on days like these where you two grieved over his mother's passing.

A week had passed since her death, and you had spent most of it comforting Shou. You had heard of the circumstances surrounding her death by your mother, who was taking it almost as hard as Shou was. It had happened the day after you had snuck into Shou’s room. Your initial assumption that he had overslept the day after had been correct. He, however, had been woken up eventually by a phone call from the hospital, telling him that his mom was in their care. Apparently, when Ai was making her commute to work, she had been caught at a red light at a crosswalk. While she stood there, waiting for the light to turn green, someone had slammed into her, causing her to fall into oncoming traffic. It was unknown if the person who pushed her had done it intentionally or not, but whoever did it was nowhere to be found afterwards.

Though the incident was tragic and you wished it had never happened to begin with, the smallest part of you was relieved it had happened at that time, and not while Shou was with you. The very last thing you wanted was for Shou to blame himself for a situation that was beyond his control. And yet, whenever you looked at him and the sad expression on his face, you could see that was what he was doing. Maybe that’s why you had walked over to the boy and grabbed his hand, giving it a tight squeeze.

“I’m here,” was all that needed to be said, and Shou gave you a grateful look. You held his hand through the entire service, through all of the “I’m very sorry for your loss” and the “you have my condolences” that the people in attendance had to offer. Shou didn’t say much throughout the entire ordeal, but every now and again he would give your hand a gentle squeeze, as if to express his gratitude to you for sticking by his side.

Eventually, the two of you make your way over to Aizawa Ai’s memorial, which featured a photo of her in her younger years surrounded by floral arrangements of all sorts. It was obvious thai Ai was where Shou had gotten his looks from: her black hair was long and wavy and her black eyes were calculating yet kind. There was a small smirk on her face, as if she had just made a witty comment towards the photographer and she was waiting for them to finally understand what she had been implicating. That’s one of the things that you loved about Shou’s mom. She had been a certified sass master. You and Shou had loved to watch both of your moms growing up have a battle of silver tongues, struggling to see who could keep up the snark the longest before bursting into laughter. You had all of these fond memories, only for them to be cut short much to soon.

“Hey, Ms. Aizawa,” you softly said, letting go of Shou’s hand and kneeling in front of her memorial out of respect as you spoke. “It’s me, Kaze. I’m sorry about your death. I mean, I’m sure everyone here is. I’m sorry, I’m not very good at things like these. I hope I’m doing this right…” you glanced back at Shou, who just nodded at you. “I just wanted to let you know that you were like another mom to me, and I’m forever grateful for everything that you and Shou have done for me and my mom throughout the years. I promise that I’ll look after your son since you won’t be able to anymore.

“I wish that I could have told you just how much your son meant to me before your time on this planet was up, though knowing how intuitive you were, you probably already know. Hell, my mom already knew, so you definitely did. So I hope you know that I fully mean everything that I say. Shou’s been a constant throughout my life, and I can’t imagine being without him. So therefore, I’ll do everything in my power to protect him. From villains, himself, and any other force that needs to be reckoned with. And that’s my promise to you,” your eyes flicker to Shou, “to both of you.”

Shou shakes his head slightly, a sad smile on his face. He offers you a hand to help you back to your feet, which you accept.

“You’re so dramatic,” he tells you as he cups the side of your face, using his thumb to brush away a stray tear that you didn't realise had fallen.

“One of us has to be,” you give him a gentle smile, placing your hand on top of his. “It’s not healthy to hold all of this in, you know.”

“I know. Just… give me time, alright?”

“I’ll give you as much time as you need. Just know that I’m with you every step of the way, you don’t have to go through this alone. I’m with you, always.”

 When you arrived back home that night, you were completely and utterly exhausted. You would have much rather endured another training session with Gran Torino than have to do that again, but you knew that it was a necessity. Especially for Shou.

You felt awful for the boy, his mom was pretty much the only family he had left. His dad had walked out on them years before (hadn’t even shown up to the funeral either, you doubted that he was even aware of his former lover passing on) and his grandparents were long since dead. Your mom had offered to give him a home with the two of you, but he declined, saying that the school had some rooms available for students to live in.

You let out a sigh as you walked into your bedroom, glancing out the window. The sun was setting, yet the sky seemed to be almost yellow as the dark clouds sitting off in the distance started creeping closer. It seemed as though a storm was coming soon. You flopped back onto your bed as you let your mind wonder.

This was the first major death in this life that you had to face, and it was just a cruel reminder that nothing lasts forever. And with the career path you were choosing, you knew that this would just be the first of many. You’re living pre-anime. There is no plot-armour here, not for you at least. Maybe Shou and Yamata are safe, but there’s no telling if your presence will influence any of that. The only thing protecting most of you is a combination of luck, skill and technique. You’re ahead completely blind for another 15 years. There’s a lot that could happen during that time period.

Your eyes flicker over to the journal sitting on your desk. The journal that has everything that you know about the MHA world written in it. If it fell into the wrong hands, the results could be catastrophic. You had wished that there was a better option to store the information instead of writing it down, but you figured that was the only way. You did not trust your memory to be perfect after having to wait 30 years between having last had access to the information. You were surprised that you were doing as well as you were at remembering, but you had chalked that up to you being in a 15-year-old body, with an equally young brain. You didn’t have to worry about age being a factor behind memory loss at the moment, not to mention that the events of the anime are pretty much what’s setting out your plans for the future, it’s kind of hard to forget.

Still, it was dangerous to keep this journal here. You did have 15 years to go before anything in that journal would give you any use. And based upon what Shou and Gran Torino had told you about  what happened to your father, and how it there was a chance that All For One might find out about you, having the journal anywhere that someone could link you to would be a grave mistake that could jeopardize the entire universe as you knew it. So you had two options: destroy it and hope your memories aren’t complete shit in 15 years or hide it somewhere that nobody will be able to find except you.

You trusted yourself a hell of a lot more to be able to remember where you hid it than you did trying to remember the events to come, in all honesty. So that’s what you chose to do.

Glancing out the window, the dark clouds were closer now, but it seemed as though you still had a little bit of time before the storm rolled in. You didn’t quite understand the reason why you felt the need to get this taken care of at this very second, however you suspected it having something to do with Shou’s mother’s death, it having reminded you of your very own mortality and just how dangerous simple things can be. If Ai was killed because of getting pushed in front of a car on her way to work, then that just proves you can die anytime, anywhere. Villian or not. You’re not immortal, nor are you impervious. You’re just a girl who can play with the breeze.

You pull yourself out of bed and go into the kitchen, rummaging around in your cabinets until you found what you were looking for-- a sealed plastic container. This should be enough to protect your journal from the elements, but you wanted a second layer of protection.

“Oh!” you lit up, realising what would work. You hurried back to your bedroom and sat the plastic container next to the journal, happy to see that the journal would fit inside. You dug around in your desk drawers until you pulled it out-- your Shogi set. You had gotten it from Shou several Christmases ago when he was insistent on teaching you how to play the game. It’s gone untouched for a few years now. It’s not because you didn’t enjoy the game, because you did, but you got sick of being beaten by Shou.

It was a beautiful box, and you momentarily wondered how a Shou (who was a child at the time) was able to get his hands on something like this. It was a wooden box made of cedar. The name of the game was engraved on the top, and on the side, your name was engraved. You remembered tackling Shou into a hug when he gave you the gift, much to the boys embarrassment.

You let out a gentle sign at the nostalgic memory, before shaking your head. You had to focus on the task at hand! You emptied the contents of the Shogi box on your desk, the tiles spilling everywhere. You gently placed the journal in the plastic container, making sure it was fully sealed before placing it inside of the Shogi box. You hoped you did a good enough job protecting the journal, but now you guessed that only time would tell. You picked up the box as you left the room, making one more pit stop in the storage closet down the hall, grabbing a trash bag to wrap the Shogi box in (just to be extra secure, it was gonna be hidden for a really long time!) as well as your mom’s hand trowel that she used to plant flowers in the springtime as you left the apartment. If you had to bury it somewhere you would remember and no one else would find, then you knew exactly where you would do it.

When you had returned home, you were soaked to the bone. The rain had started just after you had finished burying the box. You would have been sooner, but you made sure to take a very roundabout way to your destination. You highly doubted it, but if there was even the slightest chance that All For One knew about you, you didn’t want to risk being followed. One could say you were being paranoid, but you would just say that you were being cautious. You wouldn’t want to risk that kind of information falling into the wrong hands after all, which is exactly why you buried it.

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t feel a relief by not having that book on you anymore. You had always hidden it in your underwear drawer whenever Shou had come over, not wanting the boy to stumble upon it. It also helped knowing that your mom didn’t go through your things, but you still usually practiced caution around her with it as well. At least you knew that if she ever had found it, you could have played it off as a story you were writing. You did love your mother, but she was a lot less suspicious that Shou was, so you had no doubt that she would have believed you and the fate of the world would not have been at risk.

You let out a yawn as you glanced down at yourself, a grimace crossing your face. You were covered in dirt and mud and in desperate need of a shower before you could even think about going to bed.

A flash of lightning caught your eye as you made your way over to the window. The rain was coming down harder than it has in a long time, and you couldn’t help but flinch at the thunder. You hadn’t been afraid of thunderstorms in your past life, but the circumstances surrounding your death probably had something to do with that.

“Huh,” it hadn’t crossed your mind earlier, but both Shou’s mother died by getting hit by a car too. Though you had died instantaneously while she had fought for her life a week afterwards. You wondered if your old roommate, Juby, blamed herself like Shou did. You really hoped that she didn’t. It was your own choice to chase after the runaway dog, Bongo, in the rain. It was your own fault for not looking for cars on the road. Your carelessness was what got you killed, which also might explain why you were being so cautious now.

If you were being completely honest with yourself, you didn’t think that you deserved a second chance at life. You were just a college kid, nothing special. You didn’t think that you had any remarkable talents, other than maybe the fact you were a decently quick learner. Juby had once taught you how to play a few songs on the guitar, but that was the extent of your knowledge on that. You could speak a handful of phrases in multiple languages, but you were far from fluent in anything other than English and now Japanese.

You couldn’t help but wonder if this is just a thing that happens to everyone. If reincarnation is just a thing that happens to everybody, but something glitched out in your brain causing you to remember what had happened in your previous life. You couldn’t be that special, could you?

There were so many questions in your brain as you glanced out the window, until your eyes finally settled on a figure standing across the street. Maybe it was a trick of the lighting, or the trauma of thinking of your past life, or maybe it was the aftermath of the day finally catching up to you. But as you stared out the window, you could almost swear you saw Aizawa Ai staring at you from across the street. And as the lightning flashed again, the street was empty once more.

*Fun fact! When describing hair colours, blond is the masculine form and blonde is the feminine. It’s the same with brunet and brunette.