Thorny Path of a Pro-Hero

In the future, while interacting with Setsuna Tokage, I became convinced of the accuracy of my assumptions about her character and talent.

If we accept the axiom that my new world is indeed somewhat more than just the fantasy of a single manga artist... then the fact that Setsuna didn’t make much of an impression at the festival—like not winning the race, for instance—isn't because that manga artist hadn’t come up with her powers by that time or had simply forgotten about her, but instead takes on a greater... psychological depth.

I believe she was simply terribly insecure during her studies, which is why she didn't dare to do anything meaningful or risky. She didn't put in the effort; she gave up. Yes, this so-called (by me) "small-town top student" syndrome, damn it. A person who’s used to being one of the best without much effort… when placed among peers just like themselves—or even better—they either thrive, or they don’t.

Setsuna Tokage from World A didn’t thrive. And if she did pull herself together, it was too late.

And let’s be honest—few would have thrived in her place, finding themselves on the same playing field as monsters like Midoriya with multiple quirks, or Bakugo with superhuman reflexes and explosions, or that guy who turns into a giant hairy beast, or the religious zealot Shiozaki with her multi-meter vine-like hair... not every pawn can make it to the end of the board and become a queen.

What could she possibly do against any of them with her "useless" quirk?

... probably, that's more or less what she thought in that reality.

But we’re here now.

And gradually, her fragile teenage ego—rooted in the praise of others, a sense of her own superiority, and her own insecurity—which resulted in a constant need for challenges and victories, was replaced by a mature, measured, calm confidence in her abilities.

A confidence backed by concrete experience and knowledge.

Concrete knowledge that she is strong. Knowledge based not on the words of people who know nothing, but on dozens, hundreds, thousands of sparring sessions with tough opponents. Understanding.

This Setsuna has already become a queen.

Or a ferz, if you remember the history of Western chess, or even a dragon king, if you remember that we are, after all, in Japan, and here, shogi is in play...

You get the point.

After all, the girl was truly very talented—far more talented than me or Yui. She grasped techniques—literally—on the fly, adapting and mixing styles from completely different martial arts, taking only the best from them thanks to the absence of anatomical limitations of any kind, training all day with us, and with Akira, and Mashirao, and elsewhere, and on her own.

Tsuna... caught up to me in just six months.

To ME.

Without false modesty, a person who has been practicing martial arts for about fifteen to twenty years in total.

Of course, she still lacked experience and skill, and she would continue to lack them for a long time, but...

Believe me, that’s not so important when you have an elbow flying at your head from the opposite end of the hall at superhuman speed—Muay Thai style, a foot with the same kinetic energy slamming into your gut—Shotokan Karate style, and a detached hand on the right and an entire arm up to the shoulder on the left grabbing the collar of your tracksuit, trying to execute a classic throw—from judo. A completely beaten-up tachi-waza, or rather, te-waza, meaning a throw from a standing position using the hands… only without the damn standing position!

And… all these moves—SIMULTANEOUSLY.

With perfect synchronization in time and space.

Something like that.

… Maybe U.A. simply doesn’t pay enough attention to honing individual talents on a personal basis.

Or perhaps, in World A, they simply didn’t get around to developing a training program for such a genius.

In any case, in our last sparring session, where Setsuna got “slightly” carried away and fought at full strength, I, honestly, was also forced to give it almost everything I had.

Except I didn’t use area marker placement.

***

And the reason the future heroine and would-be assassin got carried away, I think, was because she thought I still didn’t take her seriously.

To which, after the sparring session, I sincerely replied:

"Come on. If I didn’t take you seriously, I wouldn’t be training you."

"Hmm..."

"And, actually, in this fight, I was going all out..."

"Liar! You were in control the whole time! I can see it written all over your smug face!" Tokage pouted and turned away towards the wall. The fact that she was slowly gathering herself back together, levitating without legs and missing half of her face, didn’t bother her at all.

I scrutinized my face in the window's reflection.

“Looks fine to me, nothing written anywhere…”

In response, Setsuna, chuckling (as you might have guessed, she gets over things quickly, yes), threw a basketball at me.

For this undoubtedly important reason, the conversation was interrupted, as we began to find out who was the better player—a fast flying person capable of replacing an entire team or a supernaturally fast, agile, and very strong solo player, making three-pointers from the opposite hoop (and sometimes even hitting!).

...but Yui won, intercepting the ball, shrinking it, and putting it in her pocket.

It was already dark.

It was time to clean up and go to sleep, as we all had an important task ahead of us tomorrow.

***

I don’t know, or rather, I don’t remember how the registration for the U.A. exams was shown in World A—or if it was shown at all—but in my world, it turned out to be quite a lengthy and bureaucratic process.

First, you had to register on the website of the Hero Schools Association of Japan, which, besides U.A., included schools like Shiketsu Academy, the second most prestigious school in the country, and their eternal rival Ketsubutsu Academy, and Isamu Academy, known for its extremely expensive and advanced technological support for students, and Seijin High School, which trains its students as ninjas (not very popular, but some fall for it; by the way, the recent rookie hero Kamui Woods is one of their graduates), and Seiai Academy, which trains its students as women, and... well, no one cares.

After registering, you need to fill out an applicant application, which must include (consider this): a consent form from your parents or guardian for such a dangerous profession; a report card signed and stamped by your junior high school; results of an interview with the school psychologist; a health certificate meeting the requirements from a doctor; a high school diploma (which will be sent automatically by your school at the end of the year); as well as your thoughts on the design of your costume and necessary equipment and a certificate of online registration of your quirk on the Public Hero Safety Commission’s website.

It was the last part that I stumbled upon.

And no, it’s not that I wanted to hide something or didn’t know how to describe its function! After all, this is fiction; a couple of lines of a brief description of the quirk’s function in a schoolboy’s clumsy language are hardly a reliable source of information about the quirk, and unfortunately, nothing more substantial can be expected due to the lack of a unified competent classification of abilities. Well, a thorough and professional description of my power will be made by specialists at U.A. (I’m sure a copy will also go to the military somewhere under Tartarus, and to the International Quirk Registry Service, and probably to someone else).

But there’s something else... and it’s very important...

“What should I name my superpower?!” I mentally screamed, trying to scrape together the remnants of my imagination.

My imagination refused to be scraped together—it wasn’t helped by nearly twelve years of using my quirk, so expecting a sudden inspiration in the next few minutes would be odd. Nothing else was holding me back—I even managed to scrape together something for a costume design.

But as for the name… I was completely stuck on that.

… Once the registration is completed, the application submitted and accepted—it’s time to choose an entrance exam for a specific school.

Well, it was obvious which one came first on the list.

Although it should be noted that other schools had an acceptance rate of about seventy to eighty percent for applicants to the hero course, unlike U.A.—with its approximate fifteen percent (the official info was quite misleading about this one).

However, all of this was largely an illusion and a facade of marketing, because U.A., as is known, only has two classes of professional hero training, and many of the eliminated students have the opportunity to move to support, marketing, or, especially, general education departments, from where they can transfer to the hero course privately. This is also a sort of test – usually, the applicants with non-combat quirks are the ones filtered out during the exam, as it is generally much harder for them to become heroes.

… Okay, the name of my quirk. I really need to settle this.

“Thank Kami-sama I don’t have to come up with a superhero name right now, or I’d end up with something like Kick-Man,” the thought flashed through my mind.

Usually, people try to give quirks names that are clear and descriptive. Marketing, promotion, salary, fans, ugh.

But, of course, I wasn’t planning on giving such a hint to potential enemies. I needed something that wouldn’t immediately reveal the full nature of my quirk to any opponent or ally, only hinting at the fact of enhancement. Besides, I’m trying to pass myself off as a typical owner of a typical enhancement quirk. Although a systematic classification of quirks doesn’t exist, enhancement quirks that improve the user’s physical parameters are widely recognized.

Another option: if the effects of the quirk are inherited from the parents, some heroes combine the names of their parents’ quirks. This is especially relevant for hero dynasties, where the father or mother, or even a grandparent, were famous heroes, like in the case of Ingenium. The combination of my parents’ quirks, considering my mother’s Timer, didn’t appeal to me at all.

Oh, and another important point: the name of a quirk must be unique. That’s quite a headache, as it means that at any given time, there can only be one professional hero in Japan with a quirk named, say, “Brick.” If the hero retires, ends up in prison, or dies in action, “Brick” becomes available to the next hero...

Well then.

First, I checked the simplest and most straightforward options: “Impulse,” “Echo,” “Marker,” “Enhancement,” “Super Strength,” and so on.

Unfortunately, as expected, they were all taken. I wasn’t particularly upset by this, but, unfortunately, my imagination ran dry after that.

After rolling the problem around in my head from different angles, I gave up and turned to my unimaginably distant and carefree past. Video games!

What about “Double Damage,” hmm?

Taken, sadly.

How about “Double Jump”? Or “Rocket Jump”? Clearly, no one would get the reference, but…

Nope.

Speaking of references: how about calling myself “Batman”? Why Batman? Because I’m Batman! Right?

… How is that taken?! It’s not even a quirk name; it’s a superhero name!

Hmm, alright.

How about “Critical Hit”? Seriously, what could sound cooler?

Tch, that’s taken too.

And when I saw that even the old-school and clever “twenty five FPS” was already taken, despite the technological superiority of this world, I was genuinely stunned.

Apparently, I’m not the only geek around here.

After discarding some really dumb ideas like “Combo Breaker,” “Bunny Hopping,” and “Ganking,” I turned to my memory of one of my favorite games from my real childhood. There, the phrase “Can I raise it higher?” was uttered in an unusually annoying voice…

Combat… no. Make it even more epic!

“Battle Multiplier.”

Oh, this one is available!

Maybe I could even use that as my hero name later—Multiplier? I’ll multiply my opponents by zero...

Or maybe I should try something boring and bland like “Double Impact”?

I typed this one reluctantly.

But no, that’s a silly name—it gives away too much about my ability. I bet my alter ego from World A picked a name like that.

I was about to go back to Multiplier, click the X, and submit the application when a thought popped into my head... let’s call it a prank idea.

I mean, I’m generally a serious person, thoughtful and all that, but... well, if Setsuna’s out here pranking everyone around her, why should I be any different?

As far as I know from the information on the academy’s website, one of the subjects at U.A. is the ethics and image of professional heroes, taught by Midnight. Alongside art history, yep. All the teachers there have two subjects—a specialized one and a general education one.

So, if I pick something frivolous that damages the image of a professional hero, they’ll definitely make me change it. Right?

But, on the other hand, it’s unlikely that my application review will reveal any violations. It’s probably automated, so it should easily let a harmless joke through.

Which means I can have some fun and write something pretty silly.

I felt a smirk creeping onto my face and carefully replaced “Impact” with another word—“Penetration.”

Well, let’s wait and see what happens when we present our quirks in class. A kind of delayed-action mine, hehe.

***

Our registrations all went smoothly.

Though there were plenty of “Niren, help, what do you think, how should I try?” Only instead of trying on dresses, it was different quirk names.

Yui didn’t come up with anything from scratch and named her quirk “Size,” thinking more about what costume design she wanted and what heroic name to choose. Well, she’s a girl—wants to be fashionable and beautiful, but also my “student,” meaning she wants functional and effective equipment. It’s a non-trivial task; Yui had recently been spending a lot of time with a sketchbook for her costume and was quite reluctant to show her ideas. I got the impression that if a career as a hero didn’t work out for her, she wouldn’t be lost as a fashion designer—the contrast between her sketches and my chicken-scratch silhouettes was striking.

As I later found out, she quietly changed her quirk’s name without telling anyone until the right moment.

And then there was Setsuna among us. At first, Setsuna wanted to name her quirk “Self-Amputation” and call herself “Reptilia” or "Lizard Girl." Because of the costume’s lizard-like skin and her ability somewhat resembling a lizard’s ability to lose and regrow tails.

However, after talking with me, talking with Yui, and most importantly, watching a ton of horror movies, she reconsidered and thought deeply about it. For example, names like “Puzzle,” “Stained Glass,” and “Mosaic” were considered—because her quirk, when called “Constructor” or “Puzzle,” indeed had features similar to something like “Lego.” It’s also about creating a battle pattern, full control of the space, deceiving the opponent…

My suggestion of “Scatterbrain,” which I irritably proposed after being splashed with water during one of the latest pranks, she, for some reason, didn’t like.

Illustrations:

Friends, both in canon and certainly with me :)