Chapter Text
Akira Kaneko liked to think that she had been born angry.
The feeling was her longest and most loyal companion. It wrapped around and suffocated her like a snake, and as she grew older, it grew as well. Anger towards her family, towards her classmates, towards the world, it all grew; but her anger was not a raging inferno.
She remembers watching a nature documentary once, and it mentioned a phenomenon when a forest fire could burn for ages underground, unseen yet smoldering.
That seemed more accurate.
Her bouts of expressed rage were far and few inbetween, but in the common day she always burned a little too hot, spoke a little too sharply, played a little too hard. And despite the fact that as she grew older, and trained her stoic and deadpan demeanor, everyone could always tell something was off with her.
Maybe it was how her canine teeth were just a little too pointed, or her red eyes that were a little too intense, or how by middle school she towered over most of her classmates.
Whatever it was, Akira had never fit into the world right.
Her first real memory of this viciousness burning in her was the day her Quirk manifested. See by four years old she had set her mind on learning to read, and was getting surprisingly far. She worked her way through all the books her parents had bought already, and bored out of her mind one afternoon, she decided to climb the bookshelf in the upstairs sitting area.
And she fell.
Honestly she didn’t really get that far up, but in her split second panic of free fall, something in her was sparked, and the five foot drop became twenty as she fell through the floor and onto the kitchen tile, breaking her arm in the process.
Akira was also never much of a crier, even as a baby, so as she laid there in pain on the cold linoleum floor as the shock took over; she did not cry out, she just froze.
It took nearly two hours for her father to come out of his office and find her laying there.
She never forgave him for that.
Following her Quirk activating and the resulting hospital trip, Akira learned a lot about the world very quickly. Parents were supposed to help their children train and control their Quirks. Her’s did not, as her powers were far more dangerous than theirs they had said. Instead her parents sent her off to the Aomori Quirk Assistance Facility, claiming that the professionals could help her more than they ever could.
She stayed for two years at the Facility.
For all intents and purposes that was actually an incredibly fast time. She basically speed ran the training. And it wasn’t like the Facility was mean or cruel, just, cold. She pieced it together quickly that the only way out of there was to do what they wanted, so she never bothered the tantrum throwing or protesting the other children did. Instead she made her way through the variety of coaches and therapists the facility offered, and she trained, and she learned. And above all, she grew angry. Angry that her parents never visited, angry at herself for being so weak, and angry at her Quirk for being so dangerous. But she choked her rage down and did what she had to to secure her future. And she swore to herself that nothing would stand in Akira’s way, physically or metaphorically.
It took nearly five months to figure out how to turn her Quirk on and off (to varying degrees of success). She had to go through an absurd amount of oxygen treatments to rectify the whole not-being-able-to-breathe-while-intangible side effect during those months, but at least she wasn’t randomly suffocating any more thanks to it spontaneously turning on.
It took another three months to stop sinking inches into floors simply by walking too hard. Soft feet like a cat, a coach had taught her.
Four more had her in control enough to stop solidifying inside random things, and accidentally exploding them.
By the second year she was able to walk on floors higher than the ground floor.
Well, she stood on top of the staircase at least. It would take another two months for her to actually walk across the entire hallway without panicking, as the memories of accidently sinking through floors and into the ground, and nearly choking to death in dirt, haunted her.
Four more months and she was finally able to consciously phase other objects with her. Yay, no more accidental nudity for her.
It was around this time in which she first heard about heroes and villains, not the sanitized and fantastical versions you could see on TV or books, but them as real and tangible people. And overhearing the nurses place bets on the older discharged patient's odds at becoming either one left Akira with a bad taste in her mouth.
By the end of her two year stay, Akira was considered in complete control of her Quirk and checked out of the Facility. But that two year stay would go on to haunt her forever, even though it wasn’t supposed to. Turns out constricting a child in their most formative years into a heavily regulated solitary life would have permanent impacts. Who would have thought?
Akira later likened it to getting out of the military. She never could shake the 6:00am wake up time, or the need for constant training, or the over-calculating and hyper-aware attitude she had developed thanks to the constant feeling that another ball was gonna drop and fuck everything up again.
She didn’t think her parents ever shook those years off either. She swore for that first year or so that they would startle when they saw her, as if surprised that she existed.
She was able to shake the most obvious habits by the time she re-entered normal schooling. The Facility had excellent tutors, so she wasn’t behind or anything. In fact, she quickly found her crowd within the other nerdy kids.
And those brief few years were probably the best she ever had.
By the time middle school started rolling around, she had found herself the victim of scandal. Too smart for her own good, she pissed off those who were once her friends as grades became more and more competitive. Her sharp tongue and sharper attitude pissed off those classmates who would try and target the nerdier kids. She tried to participate in a number of sports, and quickly found that teamwork was not a skill she possessed. The only one that would end up keeping her was track.
But the real scandal began when someone found out not only what her Quirk was, which she had always kept quiet, but that she had to stay at one of those ‘mental hospitals for crazy people who can’t control their powers’. And that became the spark to the mountain of dry kindling that was people’s dislike for her. Soon, students across multiple grades, kids she had never even spoken to, they all knew her name. Not for her scores, or her success in track, but because she had a Quirk that could let her steal anything, and the attitude to want to.
It mattered not that Akira had never actually stolen anything from anyone, the seed was already planted. Just like how one of her particularly nasty seat neighbors planted her wallet in Akira’s bag and reported her ‘suspicions’ to the teacher.
By the end of that day, the belief that Akira Kaneko was a kleptomaniac who would probably be a future villain was in everyone's head.
She gave up trying to change their minds after month three of the rumors.
The rest of that year was a bit of a blur. Rage, embarrassment, and general pre-teen angst ran rampant in the Kaneko household, and before long she began embracing the expectations. By middle school everyone didn’t just think she was a delinquent, she was one. Well. As delinquent as a middle schooler in a middle class neighborhood could be anyways.
It never mattered that she always got the best grades, not when the teachers were always suspicious she somehow stole the answer key.
It didn’t matter when she placed well in track or cross country meets, no one would be there to congratulate her at the end of the race.
And she would admit, they weren’t completely to blame. Her attitude during those years was… poor. The backtalk towards teachers and smacktalk to her classmates didn’t help, and negativity feeds itself. Her record of detentions grew longer and longer, and though they could never officially convict or confirm her crimes, the local police had her basically on a black list.
She became what they expected of her. Her attitude grew worse, and she lashed out against her parents, even letting herself drop down the class rankings a few spots as she tried less and less. She fell into the wrong crowd and instead of learning geometry in math class, she smoked her first cigarette in an alley with some high schoolers. She went along with everything the older kids did, desperate for someone to like her, but they never stopped seeing her as a child, except when they wanted her to steal something. She dyed her light gray hair a carmine red after a fight with her mom. She ran away and slept at the town library for two nights after one with her dad. She became what was expected of her. And she was so, so angry.
She got her wake up call the first semester of her last middle school year. Having graduated from skipping class to petty crime, Kato, the leader of the high school ‘gang’ she sometimes hung with, had dared her to go beyond shoplifting one night, wanting her to straight up take the cash register from a new hole-in-the-wall cafe. And so she did. She waited till they closed and night had fallen, and she walked through the alley wall into the building.
And she got caught.
Despite all the lights being off, she quickly learned that the owner of the cafe had a night vision Quirk, and had watched her fiddle with the machine while sitting on a couch a few yards away. She nearly jumped out of her skin when he finally cleared his throat.
Not entirely sure what to do having been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, Akira went on autopilot as the cafe owner and semi-retired cop lectured her for hours on end. But he didn’t end up arresting her. Even when he ran her prints, having only recently moved towns and therefore not recognizing her, he didn’t call it in. Not even when alongside her general personal information was a whole lot of red flags and warnings.
And that was when she first learned of a very important piece of information.
Sometime within the last few years of troublemaking, despite never having been charged with anything, she had one hell of a criminal record for a thirteen year old.
She only really understood the basics, just enough to know she was in some shit. They had discussed it a bit during a civics unit in school, where a collaboration between the federal government, local police, and the Hero Public Safety Commission led to an early warning system following the last decade's rise in villain crime. A red flag that made her criminal record un-confidential for any future school or job applications, out of concern for public or company safety of course, and resulting in a hell of a lot of legal loopholes for revoking contracts, labor protections, or academic access.
That shit could haunt you for the rest of your life.
In her mind Akira ran through all the reasons why this could be possible. Sure, she certainly wasn’t a model student, but she had hardly ever even been detained? Wasn't Red Flag Laws only for convicted felons?Was it just because of her Quirk? Because of her stay at the facility? Or did one of the officers she has pissed off have enough power to permanently destroy her future?
See the thing was that there was basically no chance of removing the flag in your file, the only exception being the two occupations whose screening was intense enough it could void past judgements. Which meant for people like Akira who, sure, may not be the most law abiding citizen but certainly didn’t want to ever be a villain, were left with two options in life. Military or Heroism.
All this information was whirling through Akira’s mind at light speed. She stood frozen, recalling all the negative consequences that could happen if she ignored this and tried to continue with a normal life. If it wasn't for her getting caught, when would she have learned about the ax hanging over her head? When all her high school applications were denied without cause? When she interviews for a basic minimum wage job and suddenly gets declined? All that anger swirling in her dissipated to reveal a deep rooted exhaustion instead, one she had never liked to acknowledge.
That day would remain ingrained in her head forever, just like the day her Quirk manifested.
The cafe owner, whose name was Miguel she learned, took pity on her silent, panicking form and never did report her. Instead she made a…friend?
Miguel Sasaki was a half Mexican, half Japanese man, and a very recently retired cop. He had just moved into town to open his cafe, ‘Miguel’s Coffee and Teas’. She can’t remember saying a word for the hours she sat there inside with him, but he still made her a mug, and let her walk away when she finally came out of it.
She returned to Miguel’s regularly after that. Probably a terrible idea to return to the scene of her crimes, but there was something about the way that even in his yelling, he was never angry. Concerned, frustrated, or disappointed, sure; but not angry. So she came back, again and again. And he welcomed her. Occasionally they would chat about nothing important, often whatever book that had read recently, but usually she would end up spending what little pocket change she had, get the cheapest tea, curl up somewhere out of the way, and she would work.
After their first meeting and the subsequent realization, Akira had ‘borrowed’ one of her parents old laptops that they definitely wouldn’t miss, and began digging in to figure out just how fucked she was.
And she was very fucked.
All her concerns checked out to be true.
While she had maybe disregarded school a bit since she started acting out, her grades were still in good standing. And though she didn’t have any specific plans, she did want to leave her home town of Ajigasawa for a highschool out of town. She had bookmarked a few schools to apply to later, some with good journalism or science programs, but as she read the fine print of the school’s websites, sure enough, it was mentioned that they reserved the right to exclude based on the Hero Commission advice.
She spent days and days trying to find some sort of alternative, a way to secure her future, but eventually she admitted to herself that because of a few years of fucking up in her childhood, she had just permanently fucked up her future.
It was towards the end of the second semester of her last year of middle school when Akira finally got a lead. High School decisions were beginning which meant recruiters and various speakers would come in to advertise their schools. Today, the great and all mighty hero academy of UA had graciously sent a representative, not that anyone knew. In fact, the only reason Akira knew was because she accidentally eavesdropped when hiding in a storage closet.
She had yet another embarrassing day in Japanese Literature, after once again being left without a partner for the group project. Part of her loved it, hating group work on a principle, but you would think they would have learned by now to make classes with an even number of students in them. She never got used to sitting alone and watching everyone else dart to their best friend.
So there she was, huddled in a locked supplies closet, reading one of her literature class books, when the principal herself with her familiar jingle of keys, and a person who she would realize is a UA rep stopped mere feet from her door. Ears well tuned for hall monitors, Akira had quickly picked up on their discussion.
“--Public Safety Commission sent me everyone's files beforehand. I would like to pull a few of your most academically gifted students, alongside those with high potential Quirks, and whoever else you would recommend.” Spoke the unfamiliar voice.
“Yes! Yes, of course. Ajigasawa Junior High is happy to know that some of our students caught UA’s eye.”
The woman spoke very dryly, clearly unimpressed. “Hm. I’ll need to be done by 1:00, I still have to stop by two other schools today. I am here because you have a selection of students with established families. I’m sure a few will want to apply. I will say though, considering your school's test scores, the written entrance exam should be achievable.”
“Well, I do always like to celebrate our students, and I wouldn’t be bragging if I said we had some of the highest scores in the region.”
She was totally bragging. Honestly, Akira considered part of the reason she was never threatened with expulsion was her scores.
“I will take your staff meeting room for the next two hours. Have the students wait outside and I will briefly speak with each one.” The pair had started moving again, voices growing quieter as they moved down the hall and keeping Akira from hearing anymore.
Slipping out the closet once the coast was clear, Akira continued to slip out of the school itself, before heading towards Miguel’s. Her trek was brisk and well practiced, the jingle of the entrance door’s bell even more familiar. She weaved her way through the scattering of customers and headed to Miguel’s office. Since the incident, she had stopped by nearly every day, often grabbing lunch here instead of from the cafeteria. Though neither would admit it, the man had become a bit of a disgruntled guide to her. Personal information and discussions were off limits, but the two had developed an almost friendship over a shared love for books and movies. He always indulged her curiosity too, even when it came to obscure legalities and crimes. Screw her for being curious on how money laundering worked, it's not likely she would ever actually do it.
So as she gave a light rap on the door frame and peaked in, he only acknowledged her with a raised eyebrow.
“Don’t you have school right now little Carmine?”
That was one of his favorite names for her, the same color red as her hair ends and eyes, and a play on the fact it was a pigment derived from a mexican bug.
“Lunch time” she lied.
“You don’t usually come in for lunch for another hour.”
“Rare early lunch?”
He only hummed in response, giving her an unimpressed look.
“Look just hear me out, I just have a super quick question.” she said.
“Which is?”
“What do you know about UA?”
Leaning back in his chair, Miguel blew out a raspberry in thought. “Decent amount, I suppose. Considered one of the best hero schools I think. Why?”
Akira shifted her feet, pulling the door closed behind her.
“Do you remember when we first met, and I was like, super out of it? Cause of the…”
“You got flagged for high villain potential.”
She winced. Neither of them had ever said it outloud before.
“Yeah well, it's pretty much impossible to drop the warning label, except if you go into the hero sector. And today there’s a UA recruitment rep at the school to talk to some kids, and I don’t know, I was thinking that maybe that could be the solution I was looking for?”
He gave her an indecipherable look. “Thousands of students apply to those schools, I’m pretty sure you need to be given an application to even apply, it’s not as simple as looking it up online.”
“But then how do most people apply?”
“Recruitment visits usually, school application fairs, probably going up to UA itself and asking for one. Or knowing someone who knows someone.”
“So I just need to get one from the lady then, right?” Akira asked.
He winced, “Might not be that simple, recruiters can be pretty hit or miss with how generous they pass them out, and we're probably nearing the deadline, so they’re going to be giving out fewer and fewer.”
“But there is a chance, if I could meet with her.”
“Maybe, but you would still have to pass the written, and practical exams those hero schools have.”
“Don’t you go underestimating me now, Miguel.” she retorted, pointing a finger at him.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, pest.” He said, shooing her away, “Now get your ass back to school before you get another absence. And Akira? Don’t do anything-”
“Illegal, yeah yeah I know. I’ll see you later, old man.”
Fifteen minutes later she was back at the school, silently padding down the hall. However, she did not turn left towards her physics class, but right, to where the faculty conference room was. As she peaked around the corner, she spotted three students lined up outside in the hall.
She stared for a few seconds as her mind raced. Was she really about to do this? She never really cared that much for heroes, preferring the shows and toys about the supernatural over the superpowers of real life, but she weighed her very limited options. Only rise, never fall. She was about to either save her future or obliterate it.
Plus. Fucking. Ultra.
She watched as the girl at the end of the line darted out, face stark white and looking like she was about to throw up. She sprinted down the hall, not even giving Akira a glance as she passed.
As plans formed in her mind, Akira silently moved behind the second student, keeping her head bowed as if that could hide her.
It wasn’t long until the door to the conference room opened, and the next student was called in. As the line moved forward and it was just two of them, she finally caught the attention of the boy in front of her.
Taro Yamada was a know-it-all to rival even herself, and although they never had a class together, never interacted beyond the exam result postings, and therefore technically he had no reason to dislike her; the second he saw her he sneered, trying to look down at her despite her much taller frame.
“This is the line to speak to the UA recruiter, Kaneko, not the principal’s office.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I am well aware, Yamato.” she said, deadpan.
“Yamada.”
“I don’t care.”
He paused, waiting for her to give him anything else to form a clever rebuttal off of, before trying to insult her again. “Right, and are you aware that UA only takes the best of the best, not common criminals?”
“If it's only the best of the best, then why are you here?” she asked innocently, “Sure you may have the academics down but isn’t your Quirk a little… lacking? Did your daddy try and buy your way in again?”
Yamada flushed. Akira knew his Quirk was basically just squirting ink from his wrists, and from his reaction alone, he probably fully understood just how lacking it was by hero standards.
Yamada turned on his heel, going back to ignoring her, with only a mumbled insult of, “future hero? More like a future villain.”
She rolled her eyes at that. For all his brains he really wasn’t that clever.
The two stood in tense silence as the minutes ticked down. The girl left the room and Yamada entered afterwards, leaving Akira alone in the hallway. She couldn’t help sending a few nervous glances towards the direction of the bathroom, worried that the actual interviewee might come back, but only she remained, alone. Lies and half truths flitted through her brain as she planned on what to say to the recruiter. Would this even be helpful? What if she immediately kicked Akira out? What if there was some sort of blacklist taped in a folder with her face and “VILLAIN” labeled in bold?
Okay, that was maybe a bit dramatic.
Her attention was snapped back to reality as the door swung open, Yamada rushing out with a face beet red. As he passed, she couldn’t help mummer another insult under her breath, before plastering on her most charming personality and striding through the slowly closing door.
The woman that sat inside was on the older side, a scattering of gray hairs in her brown bun and glasses that screamed bureaucratic agent, but as Akira looked closer she could see the beginnings of a thick scar running down the side of her neck and what she would assume was her chest. Calloused hands also gripped the paper she had yet to look up from also. A former hero then?
The woman’s eyes didn’t move, as she only vaguely gestured to the waiting seat. “I am Mrs. Nakamura, the representative from UA. In as few words as possible please explain to me why you would be a good fit for the hero training program.” She said, dryly. Akira's eyes widened as she spotted that the paper was a printed school profile, with the image of the girl who had fled smack dab in the center of it. Quickly, three things passed through her mind.
One, once the woman looked up and realized Akira was not the correct person she would probably be ordered to leave. Two, this former hero was bored out of her mind. And three, Akira needed to be attention grabbing, quickly.
Without saying anything, Akira snatched up the paper, phasing it right through the woman's tight grip, before balancing it up right in her palm with a flourish. The recruiter’s eyes finally shot up, and Akira let the paper phase through her hand. As it hit the halfway mark, right where the girl image was, she solidified and the paper exploded into pieces, before floating down onto the table.
“Well, first things first, you need to know that I am not on that little list you were given.”
Finally a small grin formed on the older woman's face, “Intangibility,” Nakamura said, drawing out the word. “Now why aren’t you on my little list here? Terrible grades?”
Akira met her grin with a smirk, “Quite the opposite, I consistently place within the top students in my grade, and I could nail that first spot if half my teachers would grade fairly.”
“Common excuse. Why don’t they grade you fairly?”
With a tilt of her head Akira responded, taking a shot in the dark with the goal of being interesting, “Same reason you weren’t told about me, local law enforcement has incorrectly deemed me a potential villain.”
That got a reaction. The recruiters eyebrows rose, and her body finally leaned forward, eyes alight. “Is that so? Don’t see many of y'all willing to talk to a hero recruiter."
“Well, I'm not like most kids.”
“No, it seems you are not. What was your name again?”
“Akira Kaneko, Quirk: Intangibility. Perfect for stealth, rescue, infiltration, and more.”
The woman leaned back into her seat, “You know UA has an upperclassman with a similar Quirk. He set to be the top of his class. Quite the model student.”
“Do recruiters get commissions based on successful admissions?”
“We do, but I am not in this for the money.”
“Former hero?” Akira asked, being met with a surprised expression.
“Observant aren’t you. How did you figure it out?”
“That scar was the first give away, it is far too thick and irregular to be anything but a life threatening injury. Second was the muscle I can see you still have, not something most pencil pushers would. And third… something about your eyes I suppose, you have the gaze of a predator.”
“Interesting. And why exactly are you here, Akira Kaneko?”
“Well, you as well as anyone would understand how limited my future career options are. Despite being a… less than rule-abiding student, I have no interest in crime, and I like myself too much to force myself into a military school. I am good, not because of some powerful Quirk, but because I do not stop until the job is done. There is no life here for me in Ajigasawa. But UA, where I would be surrounded by fellows that won't look at me in fear, but instead treat me as an equal? That is somewhere where I could thrive, find some real challenge. I am far beyond just wanting to be good, I want to be great .”
Grin and teeth sharp, she leaned towards Mrs. Nakamura, who met her expression with a slight grin as well. The woman reached down into a satchel at her side, pulling out a sealed folder, and flipped it, showing the label; ‘Application Information.’ She broke the seal, and pulled out a single packet, leaving the folder empty, before sliding it over.
Akira rode the rest of the day out on that smug contentness. Not only did she just wow the recruiter without ever receiving an appointment, she had left with the only opportunity for application this small school would receive.
Ha. Fuck Ajigasawa. She was going to prove every single fucker in this town that ever rallied against her wrong. She was going to be the best hero possible, the greatest around. And one day, far in the future, she would show up to a reunion and she would ensure that every person that saw her would be burning with shame or admiration.
She would be the Greatest, or she would be nothing.
-
In the three months between receiving the application and the actual entrance exam tests, Akira had kicked it into overdrive. Her once back seat ambition had gone full throttle now that she had a real goal. She devoured any piece of information regarding UA’s curriculum, and studied the hell out of every topic. History, Literature, and English topics were a breeze, as reading and writing were like the closest thing she had to hobbies, and she had been lectured on scientific topics since her Quirk manifested. Math was her weakest point, which meant she dedicated hours upon hours on practice tests.
This was all in between the borderline excessive physical training. Once she told Miguel everything, excluding the whole sneaking in part, he had set her up with a trainer friend of his who ran a dojo. Even at her most depressed and angry, Akira had never not been active. Track season had ended, but she still ran longer and longer distances every morning before school, and utilized the weight rooms after everyone had gone home, with and without permission.
The hours away from home grew longer and longer, not that her parents noticed, as she spent more and more time at the dojo. She started out in a basic self defense class, but began attending, or at least studying, any other class she could. Aikido became her favorite, as she trained to utilize her opponent's momentum against them to make up for her lack of super strength. She even began training with a bo staff, embracing her love for the sound of it cutting through air, and its silence when she let the air go through it.
And despite the growing cold of winter taking the area, she would travel to a nearby lake and train there. Building strength through swimming, and strengthening her lungs to account for her number one weakness. And every time she submerged herself, holding onto heavy rocks to keep herself from floating, she could swear it took longer and longer for her lungs to burn. The freezing cold water had an additional benefit as well. It never took long for her body to start going numb, and thinking back to how she would begin to lose feeling in her limbs when she overexerted her powers, she let the numbness sink in and forced herself to move despite it.
Akira’s Quirk was deceptively simple. Intangibility seems pretty straightforward. You can move through solid objects. Except when you got down to the science of it, it became a lot more difficult. Sure she could turn things like her clothes or a possible weapon intangible with her, but it was limited to touch. She could still recall the failure of oxygen masks back during her stay at the Facility. So, first limitation and factor: her phasing was limited to how long she could hold her breath. Now this sounds pretty flexible, until you realize that it's pretty hard to not breathe when you're in the middle of running, or someone is trying to kill you. So, hence the lung training.
In between the meditation and breath control, was her second factor; she could turn other objects intangible too. Her clothes and backpack were the most she ever normally did, so slowly she started working her way up her density limits. This had varying degrees of success. She could hold a tall stack of books standing still for a couple minutes. But with her heavy wooden desk, she could barely do it for a few seconds. But, she did improve. Holding for time drained her of oxygen, holding for density had her nerves going numb. Within the months of training, both her limits had improved.
The third factor was reaction speed, or as Akira nicknamed it, flickering. It took a lot of practice, where instead of trying to hold it for longer, she tried to rapidly turn it on and off. Imagining her intangible form emitting light, she tried to replicate the idea of a flickering lightbulb. With there being no indication of when or when not she was intangible, she figured that an opponent not knowing which hit, their’s or her’s, would even make contact would be enough to gain an advantage.
She looked up the UA kid the recruiter mentioned too, and was sorely disappointed that although their Quirks look similar from the outsider, it differed greatly in practicality. When Mirio Togata solidified inside something, he was pushed out, granting him momentum for his attacks. When she solidified, she pushed out the original matter, leaving a crater and varying degrees of destruction. This was her fourth factor. As an almost purely defensive Quirk, she had to be creative with her offense. Things like sinking a foot into the ground to kick up a cloud of dirt, or flickering with an arm inside a tree, causing it to splinter without hitting her, perhaps weren't the best attacks, but unless she wanted to go full murderer and stick her hand in someone's chest, she would work with what she's got.
Her social life was reduced to almost nothing as a result of this training, of course. She stopped skipping class to make sure she didn’t miss anything, and her time sneaking away with the high schoolers became less and less common. And it didn’t take them long to notice. She was able to brush it off as just being desperate to get out of town and to a new school, though she was careful to never mention what school. This of which they could sympathize with, but Akira was left with a suspicion that while they may have noticed her absences, they didn’t really care.
Kato was really the only one who acted differently. Akira always thought that he liked her the best, might have even wanted her to eventually take his spot when he graduated high school in the coming months.
And on one particularly cold January night, Kato pulled her away from the group bonfire and showed her his new motorcycle. He even took her for a ride, driving faster and faster down the empty back streets till her panic had her arms wrapping around him like a lifeline, while he cackled in euphoria. As an apology he taught her to ride it, until it was her driving the thing back down the street, abit much slower, with him holding onto her. She parked back along the treeline, eyes glued to the dying bonfire in the distance. And then Kato kissed her.
She didn’t go near any of the older kids again.
But as the days till the exam dwindled down, months turning to weeks, which turned to days, which turned to hours. She suffered through the five hour train ride to Musutafu, forcing herself to review her notebook over and over to distract her mind. She walked with hundreds, if not thousands of other kids towards the school. She went to her assigned exam room. And she took her written exam.
And in all, the day so far was very…lackluster. She barely struggled on the written exam, only getting tripped up on a few math questions as expected. It was hard, she wasn’t gonna lie, but after spending months building it up in her mind, she thought it would be… worse?
Some clearly struggled. In between her finishing and the start of the next section, she would subtly people watch; her favorite was a blonde boy with black lighting marks in his hair who would lose his shit regularly, struggling to stay quiet as the proctors constantly shushed him.
So yeah, it happened. She might not have gotten a perfect score to her mild disappointment, but she almost certainly passed with flying colors.
But now, as the students gathered in a large auditorium, the real test was upon them.
After everyone had taken their seats and the few minutes of chatter over the exams had passed, the Voice Hero: Present Mic came out, trying to rally the crowd like a group of fans at his concerts.
Instead he was met with excruciatingly awkward silence.
At least he brushed it off easily.
He began explaining the practical exam, and Akira shifted towards the end of her seat intently listening. The application packets only mentioned that they would be participating in ten minute mock urban battles, which Present Mic repeated.
“After the presentation, you’ll head to your specified battle center, A through G, based on the papers handed out earlier.” Mic added.
Akira pulled out the slip of paper she had been given at the beginning of the day. The letter C stood out on the sheet of white.
Finally, he went more in depth over what they would actually be fighting, “There are three different types of faux villains stationed in each battle center. You will earn points for defeating each of them based on their level of difficulty. Your goal, my dear listeners, is to use your Quirks to earn points by immobilizing the faux villains. Of course, attacking other examinees and any other unheroic actions are prohibited!”
Pretty straightforward she thought, though there were four bots shown on the screen, which was a little odd. Before Mic could continue, she found herself turning her attention to the sudden interruption of a student with a question. Gesturing to the instructions projected on the screen, he announced with an annoyingly professional voice that there was a fourth unmentioned robot, before admonishing the school and going off about some expectation of excellence he had, even going as far as calling out some other student for muttering.
Akira could only roll her eyes. Could he not have stopped after asking about the fourth bot? Please don’t say that this would be the type of students she would be classmates with.
With some decorum, Present Mic moved on from the interruption, explaining how the fourth bot, a zero point bot, was an obstacle instead of an opponent. With that he ended his presentation with a few inspiring words, and an exclaimed Plus Ultra!
As she exited the auditorium and followed the signs towards the locker rooms to change out of her school uniform, she pondered her luck. Robots, huh? She had this in the fucking bag.
See one, usually, unfortunate consequence of her whole phasing thing and all the science behind it, was that technology and her didn’t really get along. Something about disrupting the electrical current. So while she unfortunately had gone through a large number of cheap phones and was generally banned from going anywhere near her parents’ computers, robots were just fancy electronics, and she was pretty certain that just walking through one would be enough to disrupt it.
With her confidence growing, she joined in with the rest of the crowd of girls changing. She watched as some began to pull various gadgets and weapons out as well, likely tools to better utilize their Quirks. The quality varied drastically, with one girl just carrying a baseball bat, to another that had a whole suit pre-made.
While it sorta made sense to allow students to try out with the equipment they would later have as a hero, part of Akira wondered how fair it really was. If you had enough money to buy a fancy tool that was the only reason you could use your power, how was that not an unfair advantage over those who couldn’t?
Whatever. Wasn’t her problem.
Instead she silently changed, not bothering to make small talk like most around her.
With her Quirk it was best to keep things as simple and tight as possible, to reduce any chance of something not being phased along with her. While it wasn’t as full coverage as she would have liked, Akira had packed one of her track practice outfits, with tight spandex shorts and a tank top. She considered pulling her hair up, before deciding to leave it down. With how short and choppy it was it would just fall out of a pony tail anyways.
After moving to the Battle Center, Akira wove through the crowd before stopping inches away from the boundary line. Taking a starting position, she kept an eye on the screen by the entrance, and fell into a casual runner's posture, having already gone through some warm up and breathing exercises. Like as if at a track meet, she tuned out all the noise and voices around her, solely focusing on the announcers. Nothing else mattered.
She waited until saw Present Mic open his mouth and yell out an, “Okay, Start!” before immediately taking off, feet hitting the ground rhymically and head on a swivel as she passed through the huge doors and entered the arena.
She moved quickly through the mock city, which was surprisingly realistic. Buildings, cars, even scaffolding littered the area. It almost felt like a genuine run through the city, just without any living people in it.
A crash to her right had her swerving off course, leaping and sliding over the hood of a car and into an alleyway. In front of her stood a large green robot, probably around 10 feet tall, that had broken through a concrete wall. Its head shot in her direction, and beeped out “Target Acquired. I’ll kill you.” before charging towards her. Her own target acquired, Akira did not try to dodge it, as she instead picked up pace.
15 feet. 10 feet. 5 feet. She took a breath and crossed her arms above her head out of reflex as she ran through it, holding her phase just long enough to pass through. She skidded to a stop, shoes kicking up pebbles as she turned to face the bot.
No longer was it a hulking mass of metal, instead it had careened to the ground, crumbling into a slightly less terrifying pile of metal, sparks emitting off its body.
A wicked grin grew across her face, lips pulling back to reveal her two long canine teeth, and her red eyes almost glowing in delight.
“Oh this was going to be fun!” she whispered to herself, before taking off once more.
From then on it became more of a race and obstacle course than any real battle, at least for Akira. She passed plenty of students trying their hardest to throw down against the bots (to varying degrees of success), but for her the main issue was time. They were given ten minutes for the practical. She had originally diverted to the side streets in order to avoid competing against the others, and it took her too long to realize that was a poor choice as all bots seemed to want to converge towards the masses.
She could guestimate based on how tired her legs were that she had basically been sprinting non stop for around six minutes, and she only had around 19 points. That probably wasn’t too bad, especially compared to how much time she saw people wasting on a single bot, but even though she only had to just let herself phase through the bots, maybe a few times to fully knock down the bigger ones, it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t doing enough. She was restrained to the limit of how fast she could run versus the dispersion of the bots.
That's when she saw it. Sitting on the side of the road was a lone motorcycle among the various cars. She darted towards it, crouching down to trace her hands over it in thought.
Do the vehicles even work? Or are they just empty shells? Is there even a key for it?? She dug around the bike’s compartments, opening one up to see a key sitting there.
No fucking way.
These heroes testing them were crazy to give out this opportunity. No kid her age had a drivers license.
Well. Fortune favors the bold.
The sound of more crashes caused her to snap her head back up, as she watched multiple large bots spill into the street, chasing a herd of applicants who were left running for their lives.
The opportunity was here, and she wasn’t going to let it pass.
Swinging a leg over the seat, she shoved and turned the key in the ignition. It took a few agonizingly long seconds until she got the engine to roar to life. With a small laugh she revved the engine a few times before taking off down the street, towards the incoming herd.
She sped up as she got used to the feel, weaving between fleeing students in a b-line to the nearest bot. She could vaguely hear the screams of the others around her, yelling at her to stop or she would crash, but she could only give a manic smile.
She pressed herself into the motorcycle as much as possible, steading her breathing until she was inches away from Bot One, before her grip tightened and she, and the bike phased through. She immediately had to drop back to tangible as her control slipped, but with the speed she was gaining it didn’t matter. One bot, two bot, three bot, four. They all fell as she went through them, the bike giving her enough mass to immediately short circuit even the 3 pointers. As Akira reached the end of the street she turned the bike, wheel skidding on the asphalt as she looked back on the mayhem she had passed. Twelve bots of varying size laid among the street and she quickly counted an additional 25 points to add to her total, over doubling it. Panting from exertion she paused to catch her breath, shaking her hands and feet out to try and get some of the feeling to return from the numbness that was spreading. Finally feeling a bit more secure in her score, she watched the fleeing herd pick themselves up and move on, many throwing looks at her, varying from anger to wonder.
She turned the motorcycle around, about to head off into a side street when she felt the ground shake.
Boom.
B oom.
Boom.
Thunderlike steps dominated the air, and she slowly turned to her right, looking past the store fronts at the end of the T intersection she sat at, where clouds of dust were rising. Head raising further, she stared at a colossal. A robot, easily a dozen times the size of the others stood in front of her, each step rattling her teeth.
The Zero Point Robot.
Abandoning any ideas of going off and hunting more robots she revved the bike again and began speeding back up the street. Most of the students were already far ahead, and once again running for their lives, but out of the corner of her eye she spotted something that had her skidding to a stop.
Halfway buried under one of the three point bots was a large boy, yelling for help, and no one was stopping.
Fuck.
Did she cause that? Did malfunctioning one of the bolts make it fall on him? Why the fuck was no one stopping to help? Fuck was it her job now to help?
With a spitted out swear she leapt off the bike, leaving it to skid off into a wall. She ran the rest of the way to the boy, trying to ignore the shaking ground throwing her off her balance. The boy spotted her, reaching out a hand and chanting “thank you, thank you, thank you,” over and over.
Akira slid down onto the ground, yelling at him to “hold your breath!” before grabbing onto the boy as much as possible. With a grunt she focused her power into the boy, using just her numb arms to pull him out, fearing that digging her feet into the ground to brace herself would end with her sinking into it instead. Her muscles screamed in protest at trying to lift the dense man; her lungs and head throbbed as the lack of oxygen and growing numbness from her nerves strained her already depleted stamina.
Finally the boy was pulled all the way free and Akira immediately dropped him, gasping and sputtering along with the stranger. Another violent shake had her slamming onto her hands and knees, and she looked up at the colossal hand mere yards away, slowly recoiling back up to strike again. Grabbing the boy she yanked him to his feet,
“Move or be crushed!” she screamed and took off, still dragging the stumbling student behind her. Realizing the bot was moving in a straight line through the street she veered off to the right, running as close to the shattered shop windows as possible. As they pulled ahead of the robot she finally dropped the boy's hand, and with one last glance to make sure he could handle herself, Akira made her exit down the street, through the enormous doors and to the crowd of safety, just as the sirens marking the end of the test sounded.
Three hours later she was back on the train, having changed into the clean school uniform she had worn during the written exam. The nearly five hour commute had been excruciating so far, with her nerves still too on edge for her to relax or try and distract herself with a book. At the beginning there were a decent amount of students packed in, but as they got further and further away from Musutafu, the emptier the car became. It was still too early for the afternoon work to home commuters to board, so at least she had enough peace and quiet to put in her headphones and attempt some meditation.
Or at least she would if it wasn’t for the sobbing girl starting up again every ten minutes.
Akira was pretty certain she was a girl based on the female school uniform, but considering the girl’s body was entirely invisible, Akira couldn’t be entirely sure. It was on the fourth round of sniffles turned sobbing that Akira finally caved. Digging some stashed napkins out of her backpack she made her way through the aisles to the girl. She stuck a hand out, offering them silently. Based on the hat, the girl slowly looked up at Akira, before carefully taking them and adding it to her depleting pile. Using one to wipe her face, Akira watched it become more and more damp with invisible tears.
Akira shifted from foot to foot, not entirely sure what to do. Was she supposed to say something? Just leave her be? She never knew how to handle crying people.
“Uhm…” she started, “Are you okay?” she said slowly.
Immediately the sound of her bursting into tears started again. “NoOoo,” she wailed, “today was supposed to be the greatest day ever. I was supposed to become a hero. Instead I just embarrassed myself.”
“Ah. Well… I’m sure you didn’t do too bad?” Shit was she one of the UA applicants too?
“No, I totally failed. I totally, like, bombed the written exam, and then the practical was robots?! Why robots?! I can't do anything with robots!” The girl carried on, ranting on and on about all the ways she had failed today, and Akira could only stand there, eyes wide and not really sure what to do.
She slowly outstretched her hand and placed it on the girl's covered shoulder, as if approaching a scared animal. The second she made contact the girl's attention immediately snapped back to her, and before Akira could withdraw she found herself being pulled into a hug. Frozen still, she continued to hold the girl, occasionally giving a light awkward pat for a series of excruciatingly long minutes. Finally the invisible girl pulled away, sniffles and hiccups fading.
“Thank you. I really appreciated that. I just… today did not go like I expected and I don't even want to go home now and tell my parents.”
Akira’s heart melted a little at that admission. “It’s… fine. I get that today was probably really hard and stressful. But did you do your best? Fight to the max of your capacity?”
The girl hiccuped again. “Yes? I think so?”
“Then there is little else you can do. You did your best, so don’t wallow in your regrets. Just, keep moving forward. Perhaps UA isn’t your path to being a hero. You are invisible, that's a crazy good Quirk, just not for that test. There are other hero schools right? Maybe one of them is where your place is. Your life is not over, your… just on a different path than expected.”
The hat tipped up at her. “Were you there as well?”
Akira hesitated, before admitting, “yeah, I was.”
“How did you do?”
“I did my best, that is all I will focus on.”
The girl went silent, hat pointing off into the distance. “yeah. okay,” she said softly. “Um. Thank you Miss…”
“Akira Kaneko,” she said, holding out a hand.
The girl gently grasped it, shaking it weakly. “Toru Hagakure… Thank you, Kaneko. I think I need to think about some stuff.”
Akira gave her a weak smile, withdrawing her hand and leaving with a final nod. She wasn’t exactly sure if that was a successful interaction or not, but at least she wasn’t a bystander.
Maybe that's what heroism is? Not necessarily saving others through crime fighting, but just not letting yourself stand aside?
That type of heroism didn’t sound so bad.
From there the rest of the trip went better. Hagakure was silent and they had hit the smooth rail lines, so Akira eventually decided to do a bit of searching for herself. She was decently confident of her success. Her exam scores might not be perfect, but they were in no way concerning. And from her observations she probably had one of, if not the, highest accruement of points in her zone. As long as they didn’t disqualify her for driving a motorcycle without a license, (which she thinks would be pretty dumb, why would you put them there if not to use?) she should have a spot secured.
So unable to relax, she spent the rest of her time looking things up on her shoddy phone. Her parents had agreed that if she got in they would fork out the money to get her an apartment near campus, though they set a pretty miniscule budget. It took a bit of digging but she was able to find a shoebox her parents would be willing to pay for, even if it was in a bit of a sketchy area.
She would probably be fineee.
Trying to take her own advice, to just keep moving forward, Akira shoved any concerns of the exam to the side, focusing on the things and plans she could control.
The next week of waiting was excruciating.
She had applied to a few other backup high schools, and was rejected by all but one. So she buried her anger in more and more training. With her dad recently having transitioned to fully at-home work for his software design, she had lengthened her time away from home longer and longer, curling up at Miguel’s or the town library. She stopped using the front door all together, instead choosing to slip in and out as she pleased, though she was careful to only pass through areas that didn’t have any electrical wiring. The last thing she wanted was to cause her house to lose power.
On the seventh day, when she came out of her room for once, she headed to the kitchen for a quick meal. To her surprise her mother, rarely home before 8:00 pm, stood by the counter, flipping through the day's mail. As Akira approached, her mom silently handed over a small but thick letter, before going back to sorting through the mail. “Let us know if you get in. We’ll need to officially sign that apartment paperwork asap,” she said.
Akira paused for a moment, hoping her mom would at least ask her to open it with the family. Hoping that they would make this a bigger deal considering it would literally define her life. But she received nothing, and Akira left to hide in her room as always. She sat down at her desk, and with steady but nervous hands she slowly opened the seal.
Shaking out a few folded papers, a small gray disk fell out as well, rolling on the desk before falling flat. Immediately, blue light was emitted onto her nearby wall, and the face of a little white mouse-person came into frame, one she quickly recognized as the Principle of UA, Nezu.
“Akira Kaneko, you placed within the top five percentile of written exam scorers. In the practical exam you successfully decommissioned 44 points worth of enemy robots. However the entrance exam was not only graded on villain points, for how can a hero course reject people that prioritize saving others and doing the right thing. In order to test not only combat prowess, but potential as a hero, there was a second, secret, way to get points. Rescue points! In this category you received 31 additional points for your reaction to the stampede, and your saving of a student during the 0-pointer phase. In the practical you placed second overall with 75 points total. Congratulations, and welcome to your Hero Academy!