[Onikami Village, Kyoto [6:03 AM]

13 years ago…

Onikami village is a very cultural village on the south east side of Kyoto.

It receives a countless number of tourists and is known for one thing, a pure bloodline.

Back when the quirk phenomena started, two lovers were blessed with the same quirk, Oni.

And even now, all of Onikami's residents share the same quirk. But with such perfect society comes at a great cost.

The sun was just rising, light fills the Fushima shrine temple, as the ritual of the dawn was about to commence, it was a yearly tradition, any child above the age of 3 would have to perform this ritual to keep residence in the Onikami village, as to stay in the village, they would have to prove they can continue that pure bloodline.

It was mine, and many other children’s day to prove themselves worth and given a mark that signifies their worth.

“Alright children, please get in a single file line, and when it’s your time I will bring you up.” a very tall shrine maiden said to the little children as they all gathered around.

“Yes Miss Ikari!” we all said simultaneously.

Mitsuki ikari, the head shrine maiden and also my mother that raised me up and taught me the ways of our culture. I miss her, I miss her lots.

She called up kids one by one, all of them proved themselves as pure bloodline and all received a permanent mark on their chest signifying their purity.

Finally it was my time, “Sweetie, it’s your turn.” My mom said holding my hand as I nervously shake.

There were circle of candles, incense candles that were meant for good luck, and I was in the middle of it.

I span around in a circle and activated my quirk.

As I turned, I noticed I was levitating, and started flying around, I felt free! I first did a trip around the shrine, and ended my flight at the top of the shrine after a minute of flying, I flew back to where I started.

But when I got back, the whole village was staring at me with disappointment.

“What’s the matter everyone? Did I do something wrong?” I innocently ask.

It was silent for a moment, but I wasn’t prepared for the moments after.

“Oh my…” One of the shrine maidens said as all of the village people started harassing me.

“Leave!” “Get her out of here!” the villagers screamed at me.

“get away from her, it’s not her fault!” my mother said as the shrine maidens and shrine guards came to assist her. “w-what did I do wrong???” I said looking wiping my tears, but that’s when I noticed them.

My hands and my legs, they were deformed, they were like nubs, I was… a defect.

“What are we going to do with Miss Natsuki your excellence?” The shrine maidens asked my mother.

I heard them from my bedroom, as tears were coming out of my eyes.

“She will live in the shrine until she is old enough to leave, I will appoint you three as her caretakers, fulfill her every request, accompany her and treat her as you treat me.” My mother commanded.

“Yes, your excellency!” The three shrine maidens accepted.

From that day on, I was limited to my living quarters, all my social interactions were from my mother or my three shrine assistants, they also were my tutors in any subject, even they had trouble learning.

I never could partake in any of the festivals or play with any of the children.

All of my food was delivered from out of town, and they usually were cold when they got to me.

Finally, when I turned 16, I was free to leave and never come back.

When I left, I went to my mother to say my final goodbye as I could never see her again after I left.

She didn’t say anything to me when I arrived at her living quarters, but when I gave her a hug, she whispered four words that I’ll never forget “I’ll always love you.” she gave me a himawari flower for good luck and I walked out of the village.

[Yaese Shipping Co. Yaese [10:20 AM]

Me and Kotoshi hear a loud screech coming from the car ramps, it was way too dark to know what was there, but I felt it getting closer and closer, feeling the air change ever so slightly.

“W-what was that?” I ask Kotoshi, I lean in closer to him as he watches closely.

“You know earlier today when I said I might die? This thing probably would’ve been my fate.” he says to me.

We hear the screeches and noises get louder and louder until it feels like it’s right next to us, but it suddenly stops, like whatever was in there with us left. But something wasn’t right, it was quiet, eerily quiet. I’m paralyzed in fear, too afraid to even look behind me. I then feel a gust of wind, I look around, and see a soda can roll over to us. I hear something behind us.

Screech!!!

Some bird-like creature swooped down at us, a creature you would see in horror movies.

“WATCH OUT!”Kotoshi says grabbing me as we leap forward, narrowly dodging his attack, as his talons gash into the floor. I glance at the floor as it cracks at the impact.

It tries lunging at me, showing his razor sharp teeth, but he was stuck there, the attack nailing him into the ground.

We take the opportunity to find some sort of exit, to get away from that... thing. We dash to the other side of the room, while that creature tries pulling itself out. Luckily, we saw a backdoor exit, I take a look back, to hopefully get a good look at presumably the thing that tried to kill Kotoshi.

But it’s gone, I look in front of me and kotoshi stopped too.

We both knew where this was going, so we ran for the exit, and as soon as we got there, we turned around.

Screech!!!

Just as we predicted, he attacked, swooping down at the entrance.

We quickly learned its attack pattern, the creature likes to attack when we least expect it.

I learned that from the many “creature feature” horror movies I watched.

“Augh… Why won’t you just stay still?!?”

The thing said as we run in the other direction, it quickly gets up while flapping its wings and heading our direction and heads for me.

I try to jump out of the way, but it grabs my hood and throws me to the floor and pins me down.

I struggle as it starts opening its mouth, I activate my quirk and fly away as its teeth sink into the hard concrete. The creature starts a tantrum of sorts, banging his claws on the ground in rage.

Instinctively, we run to the stairs and hide there.

“You, wheeze have a quirk?” Kotoshi asks me. I nod my head as we think up a strategy.

“Let’s think logically on this, we clearly can’t escape this thing, it is way faster than us.” I say as we hide on the stairs, “We can’t fight it either, Extinction is too dangerous to approach. Even if we could, this guy’s known for being able to take a shot from a tank and not fall out of the air.” Lotoshi says to me “Wait, I have an idea.” he says taking out his phone.

He scrolls down and looks at something at his phone.

“Okay, hi sweetie, yada yada yada, okay, I’m on my way from work. Sent an hour ago.” Kotoshi says moving on to the navigation app. “She’s in the general area!” he says giving me no context at all.

“Who now?” I ask him, he dodges the question.

“Mommy, meet me behind my work building, and get to the parking garage asap! No questions asked.” he says making a voicemail.

“Mommy?!?” I say to him as he sends the message. “And you, no questions asked either.” he says as I nod my head again.

[Yaese Underwater Train Station [10:35 AM]

An attractive woman walks out of a bullet train, carrying a big luggage bag. A crowd gathering around her.

“Hey, is that who I think it is?” A girl said “Yes! That’s the woman herself, the number one hero in Okinawa and 11th in the hero ranking, Ai Tanaka, or her more famous name: Inertai! She saved a whole school from a fire in just ten seconds!” A fanboy says nerding out over her.

“really? I think you’re just over exaggerating it.” The girl replied back.

“No really! Her quirk is called “force”.” the fanboy said back “She can force any object to move in any direction! The lighter the object the faster she can move it, but she found a huge loophole around it.

The quirk only takes into consideration the item she’s touching into the full weight, so she has stickers that she can stick on heavy stuff and moves them at the speed of light!” The fanboy continued

“also, don’t worry, if someone gets sent at the speed of light, they won’t feel it. Which is perfect for transporting people.” The fanboy finishes, explaining the quirk.

“one question, why is she named Inertai?” the girl asks “So she named herself that combining the word inertia, which is the force of an object going down a hill, and her name-” the fanboy says before inertai walks up to him.

“first of all, yes, I can move at the speed of light, the buttons on my suit are professionally made to be lighter than a grain of sand. So yes, I can move at the speed of light. Secondly no, I didn’t save an entire school in ten seconds, sure, I can move at the speed of light, but I can’t react quick enough to move at those speeds, I'm still human after all.” Inertai explains.

“And lastly. Do not tell another soul about how I got that name, I was a kid when I made up that name, it’s corny and embarrassing. You hear me?” She says intimidatingly to the fanboy.

“Senpai noticed me! This is the single best day of my life!!!” The fanboy says freaking out.

“okay dude, you gotta chill.” The girl says back after finishing what she had to say, Inertai walks away.

Ring!

Her phone sounds a notification.

[Notifications]

! Voice mail !

[Sender: Koto]

“Mommy, meet me behind my work building, and get to the parking garage asap! No questions asked.” -Koto

“Huh, okay! I guess he has some special surprise, sigh that boy.” inertai says as she holds onto a button on her wrist and speeds through the crowd.

[Abandoned Parking Garage, Floor 2 (Stairs) [10:37 AM]

Me and Natsuki are hiding in the stairwell connecting the second floor to the third floor.

“I'm kinda scared.” Natsuki says trembling. I sigh, as I felt the same way.

“Don’t be, as long as we stay together I promise we get out of this okay!” I smile at her, I was scared as well, but I knew very well that help was on the way.

Ring!

[Notification]

! Voice mail !

[Sender: Mom]

“I'm on my way sweetie, I should be there in about 5 minutes, I know where you are since our phones are synced, see you then!” xoxo -mom “okay, help is on the way, we have to stay alive for 5 minutes. Since she’ll be here around then.” I said to natsuki, she felt safer knowing that. We both decided to go higher, as we could avoid him for longer if we just hid on the top floor, as it’d be way brighter, so he couldn’t sneak up on us.

We slowly walked up stair after stair, the screeches were getting quieter, we reached the top! The thought of survival felt much more likely and felt so much better getting a breath of fresh air.

But of course, once things start to look up, it all gets thrown into the garbage.

When we got to the rooftop, we looked around, it was just us. “Ok, we should be safe-” I say before extinction swoops in and pins me to the ground.

Luckily, I had both of my backpacks on and they shielded me from the impact. But my old backpack gets completely torn apart.

Extinction started screeching and clawing at my backpack, while natsuki tried to get him off of me.

She grabbed his tail, and I don’t know how, but she picked him up by the tail and flinged him away from me.

I was amazed at her skills, I admired her as she helped me up.

“What type of quirk do you have? You can fly, you can pick up heavy stuff like him, and you can turn into an amazing fairy!” I say to her, “I’m not a fairy-” Natsuki says getting offended.

But she quickly stopped getting mad at me as extinction recovered and was getting ready for another swoop.

Stolen novel; please report.

But he just lands in front of us, instead of a surprise attack.

“Just give it back, and we can be over this.”

Extinction says to us, I'm confused at what he wants.

“I don’t know what you want! But I can give you- napkins!” I say throwing the rest of my napkins in my pockets at him.

Slash

The napkins get completely destroyed before they could act as a distraction.

“Heh…” I say nervously backing up as Extinction charges at me, purely intended on putting his claws through my fragile body.

But Natsuki bumped me out of the way, as extinction grabs her, gripping her small body.

“You little pipsqueak, saving him? Time for your punishment… METEOR RUSH!!!”

Extinction screams while dragging Natsuki across the floor as she screams in pain, he finishes by throwing Natsuki against the railing.

She screams in pain on the impact, as she turns back into a human, unconscious.

“Natsuki!” I scream, extinction was flying towards her to do the finishing blow.

I didn’t hesitate, I ran towards her, even if it meant my life. I got her into this mess, and I couldn’t bear to live my life knowing I caused the death of someone.

So in a heartbeat, I jumped, sacrificing myself.

This is the end. Isn’t it. Even if I live this, i’ll probably be paralyzed for life, or even worse, maybe i’ll be blind for the rest of my life. There are so many things I would’ve wanted to accomplish, but this i’ll happily accept as my grand moment to shine.

Then, a miracle happened, I had my eyes closed the entire time, so when I finally heard silence, I thought I died, but it felt… off.

I opened my eyes, my arms shielding my head, a forcefield was protecting me, I touched it, it was… stretchy, like a rubber ball, extinction was also confused by this.

I felt an euphoric sensation that was flowing through my body. “is this… mine? It can’t be… haha…” I say in doubt, while extinction is trying to gnaw and claw through the forcefield.

“This is… This is incredible!!!” I say as Natsuki becomes conscious.

“Koto… is that you?” she asked. I nodded at her. But she went back unconscious.

Just then, something in my head said. “Charge ahead, like a real hero would!” so I did, taking a single step forward, I charged forward.

Suddenly, a colossal burst of energy flew with me as I tackled him at high speeds, extinction tried to hold me back, but he was easily overpowered, as he slid backwards.

I looked into the eyes of extinction and said firmly, “I. Am. Not. Your. Prey!!!” boosting forward even faster and more intensely, I pushed him through the railing, and we both flew off of the building, but he regained control and flew off, while I was left to fall to my death.

But the moment I was about to touch the ground, I was caught.

I looked for a moment, and I saw the face of my mom.

“Koto, what happened? Are you alright?” my mother asked me.

“So-Someone on t-top of building-” I say before I black out.

[unknown area. [??:??]

I open my eyes, calmly resting in front of a black void, nothing was around me, it was quiet, but in a relaxing way.

I suddenly get a vision, I see a world in front of me, in fact multiple universes.

One of them, I saw Enjo Todoroki, also known as Endeavor, but he has a intense fire quirk.

That was weird since the endeavor I see on tv has an intense ice quirk, called “Sheer Cold”.

Then I heard a voice, like one of those voices you hear before getting teleported into an Isekai.

These places you gaze upon is a universe known as a “reality” and there are multiple realities, more than you can fathom, but all a mortal like you needs to know, that any person you meet will be different.

Whether it be a small difference as colors or personality, it could change them in massive ways such as gender, views and even who they are.

A person that is a friend of yours in one reality could be a dangerous criminal in another- “koto.” a voice I hear in my head.

It is your time to leave the astral plane, we will never meet again. You or the watchers of reality. Goodbye.

“Mr. Creator of reality, please don’t teleport me in an Isekai-” I plead.

[Yaese Hospital, Okinawa [9:00 AM]

February 24th

the day after…

“Hey! He’s up!” A familiar face wakes me up.

I wake up to see Natsuki leaning on me, with the doctors on my left talking to my mother.

“Miss Ikari, please take your hands off of the patient.” one of the doctors asked.

“Hehe, of course!” natsuki said cooperating, the doctors were going to examine me and do a couple of tests on me.

They left the room to get their equipment, natsuki was also asked to leave the room.

So it was me and my mother left in the room, and I have a lot of explaining to do.

“What day is it by chance?” I ask my mom.

“Sunday, just the day after.” my mom said to me.

“listen, you don’t need to do any explaining, your friend explained everything to me, what I wanted to ask.

Are you just friends?” my mom playfully asks, and I knew what she was implying.

“Mom! She’s just a friend we met yesterday.” I say to her.

“Do not raise your voice at me, you may be growing up, but that doesn’t make you immune to a beating.” she flares. I backed down, her beatings are scary…

“Second of all, why didn’t you call the police? That was the sole reason I got you a phone.” my mom asked.

“Well, there was a villain-” I said before getting spoken over.

“Exactly! Why didn’t you call the police?” she interrupted.

“Well, it was the A-rank villain I saw on the news, and if I called the police, he would start attacking them, and I know about him, he survived a rocket launcher, the police wouldn’t be able to do anything, and my life is way less important than theirs…” I say. My mother sighs

“Sweetie… you’re important to me. Remember 11 years ago?” My mother said to me.

[Hiroshima Orphanage, [1:10 pm] 11 years ago…

It was a regular weekend, I was piled with paperwork when Hiroshima Orphanage invited me and a couple other heroes to visit kids at the orphanage to educate the kids about hero work.

My colleagues insisted I go and they do the paperwork, and my sidekicks said that they would patrol in place of me, so reluctantly, I went.

Me and a couple of other heroes, The BMI Hero: Fatgum, and The Rabbit Hero: Mirko arrived at the orphanage, the teacher greeted us and told us to wait as she brought out the kids.

All of the kids went out of the single file line as soon as they saw us.

“Alright kids, these are pro heroes, the orphanage took some money out of the bank so you kids could be educated about what it’s like to be a hero!” Ms. Kyogaku said as the children were extremely excited.

They all ran towards the heroes, “Now kids don’t run towards… Nevermind.” Ms. Kyogaku says as she gets ignored most of the kids ran towards us “Wow, so many children, I think i’m getting a little overwhelmed over here.” Mirko says while the children tried touching her rabbit ears.

“You’re one to talk, look at the kids I have.” Fatgum said while the kids are busy poking his belly.

“What do you do?” a kid asks me. “I can move items around when I touch them.” I say confidently.

“Boring.” the kids say as they moved away from me.

“Ai how are you handling things Ai-” Mirko said to me as I fall to my knees as I draw in an empty crowd.

I felt embarrassed at myself, handling kids was not my specialty, and my quirk wasn’t as flashy or cool as the other two. “Excuse me.” a kid said behind me, I was startled. That’s when I first met you.

“Sorry I scared you miss… umm…” you said to me.

“You can call me Ai, what do you want?” I say to you, I admit I should’ve been more nice, “I just thought you needed some company, after all, you look lonely, I think you look cool-”

BOOM!

An explosion happened inside of the orphanage, I quickly went into the building.

I started putting stickers on every person I could find in the building and evacuated them.

I got them all out, in one minute as well, but then I notice you were gone.

“Where’s that kid?” I yelled out, “You’re right, Kotoshi!” Ms. Kyogaku yelled out for my name.

“Help!” I heard your voice in the building, I went back in the building for you.

You were under burning rubble, struggling to get out.

I moved every piece of rubble from beneath you, and carried you out to safety.

I laid you down, you were completely fine, looking back at it, you were just stuck.

“What were you doing in there!?! It’s dangerous in there!” I lectured you.

“I-I'm sorry *sob* Ms. Ai… I wanted to help people like you do, their lives *sob* would be more important than mine…” You sobbed.

"You reached the depths of my heart, you had a selfless heart and didn’t care if you got hurt or injured, as long as no one else did.

Even when you were quirkless, you had a heart of a hero. That’s the reason I adopted you.”

[Yaese Hospital [9:10 AM]

“Listen, you always cared more about other people than yourself, so don’t put yourself down for your actions. Kay?” My mom says hugging me. “You were very brave to do that to that to… Whatever that thing was.” My mother continues as I get flashbacks from yesterday.

“i never knew you had a quirk, Natsuki mentioned you had an incredible power, and I want to see it for myself.” she says to me.

THUD!

The door swung open Natsuki came running inside in a hurry, sweat was running down her face. “T-There’s bad people in the building!” Natsuki said completely exhausted.

“Also, glad to see you’re alright Natsuki.” I said to her. “Hehe, I’m always alright!” she said cheerfully. Completely changing her attitude.

“But the thug situation is real, right?” my mom asked her. “Yes, one of them even pointed a gun at me, but it was jammed so I got away.” Natsuki said so calmly.

“I’m going to take care of the thugs, you kids stay here.” my mom said to the two of us.

My mom left the room, leaving me and Natsuki in the room, alone.

“Are you okay? Extinction hurt you pretty bad, doesn't it?” I ask Natsuki, “He did, watch this.” Natsuki says turning back into a fairy.

There were gashes all over her body, they already scabbed up so they weren’t bleeding.

“you see, my quirk acts like two separate bodies, but my Oni one can’t live without the human one, but the human body can live while the Oni body is healing.” Natsuki says while turning back into a human.

“Okay, so basically like that one show, if the monster can’t keep fighting, it goes back into a ball until it’s recovered.” I give an example. “Yep! That’s a weird way to say it, but yeah kinda like that!” Natsuki says.

“But I do want to thank you, you could’ve let me die, but you stayed to help me!” She says to me, I blushed, I never received a compliment from a girl, another first.

“Well, my mother always did say I had a selfless heart-”

THUD!

A burglar (I could tell since he was wearing a ski mask, it’s 80 degrees outside!) was thrown through our door. Both of us were startled, when my mother came through the door.

“Sorry children, Mommy was taking care of business.” my mom said.

“H-Help me.” The burglar groaned, “You get no grace!” my mother said stomping on him, and she was wearing heels. “Ooh… That’s gotta hurt.” I say.

[Bao Sai (Residential District) [5:30 AM]

The authorities arrived shortly after, arresting the thugs, they were petty thieves just causing chaos and running away with equipment they could exchange for a quick buck.

After the police said we could go. I asked my mother if Natsuki could stay at our house, as she had no place to stay, my mother let her come with us and the three of us were on our way.

We went to the grocery store together to get some ingredients.

We took the bus back to Bao Sai and we rode home on “Mochi”, my scooter.

When we got back to the house, Natsuki and I cleaned up the house while my mother made dinner she made chicken adobo with rice for dinner. We started eating, it was so good that Natsuki and I got seconds.

Afterwards me and Natsuki watched a movie while my mother was washing the dishes, I insisted on cleaning them myself, but she wanted me to have fun.

My mother’s phone rang on the coffee table, so I picked it up and gave it to her, “It's a business call, , so she left the room.

The movie was already done, so there wasn’t really anything to do but talk.

“So… I was thinking…” Natsuki said as she was eating a mango.

“What are you thinking?” I asked her. “well, since me and you both have solid quirks, I was thinking we entered UA High together!” Natsuki said to me.

I thought she was insane, UA High is the most well known and the most prestigious schools in all of Japan, no school could even come close to it. It’s also known as the hardest school to be accepted in, with at best a 0.5 percent acceptance rate, you’d have to be elite of the elites to make it in.

“Are you insane? The entrance exam is this week! I haven’t even built up muscle to lift a watermelon.” I say to her.

“I didn’t mean this year.” Natsuki said to me, I came to the realization.

“Wait, do you mean next year? If so, I could train every day until I have a decent build.

Ahh… I don’t think so. I could never stay in one routine, I’d eventually lose interest.” I said.

“Maybe you won’t have a choice?” Natsuki says signaling behind me, I looked, and my mom was listening to the whole conversation. “I could help, if you’re up to it sweetie!” my mother says with a wink.

“I mean… why not? I dreamed of being a hero as a kid, I always doubted myself, but going from zero to hero is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, maybe I can do this, maybe I can go above and beyond! Plus Ultra style!” I say out loud.

“Yeah! That’s the spirit!” Natsuki said.

“Great! You two can start tomorrow, I’ll wake you two up at four in the morning.” My mother says. “Wha- huh?!?” We both said at the same time.

“This is the start of a legend, this chapter may be over but this Storia has just begun!” fin.