It had been four years since Tobias awakened his quirk and he had made progress. Unless there were circumstances outside of his control, he trained his quirk every day without fail. One of the things he learned pretty early on was that unless the card is thrown for the effect to activate, the card would return back to its original state. Thankfully this saved some money for his parents who had to buy him a new deck of cards almost twice a week.

Not only was he training his quirk, but he had also convinced his parents to let him join a local dojo to start training both his stamina as well as training in weapons. He had realized that if he ever ran out of cards, he was pretty much a sitting duck. So, he decided it would be the smart choice to also train in a weapon that would be a backup.

Fortunately, the dojo he went to decided he was competent and talented enough to learn the use of a weapon earlier than the other kids. Tobias wasn't into the whole katana and bladed-weapons thing that so many are obsessed with, so he had to decide between the kanabō or tonfas, which were the only two other weapons the dojo taught.

Having watched One Piece before, Tobias was able to recognize the kanabō that Yamato used, so he decided to go with that, as an homage. Obviously, he wasn't given a kanabō as big as Yamato's considering he was just a kid. Still, though, Tobias liked the weapon. The feeling of crushing something with brute force was cool. But if he had his way, he would go with Graves's shotgun as an homage to TF's partner.

Anyway, back on the quirk training front, Tobias had moved away from pigeonholing his ability to Yu-Gi-Oh style cards. He had begun experimenting with more fantasy-style magic such as fireballs, lightning, and other magic-related abilities.

And speaking of experiments, the experiment to see how long cards could last had very good results. Turns out the cards last a month, but Tobias realized as he trained more, the cards were able to last longer. Naturally, this is if he doesn't use them.

Besides the more fantasy abilities, he had also worked on bringing the stamina cost down of the blue, red, and gold card. At this point, he had brought down the cost of both the red and gold card from 5% to 2%, while the blue card was brought down to 30%. He had also learned that he could add more stamina to a card other than its base stamina to make it stronger.

Another way that Tobias realized he could use his quirk is to buff his body. He figured if he could create anything he wanted via the cards, he should be able to create the super soldier serum. Unfortunately, he learned just how much stamina was required to do something like that and it was insane. So, he decided to try temporary buffs instead of permanent ones, and that went much better.

A buff that made him lighter and run faster, cost 50% of his stamina, but this was after training his body for a few years. In the beginning, it took almost his entire stamina. Just like the other cards, he could add more stamina to make the buff last longer as well as stronger. All the physical buffs cost the same amount, but the mind-related buffs cost more.

For example, a buff that lets him think faster and retain more information costs 90% of his stamina, after training. With this, he realized that things related to the mind are more stamina-draining because of how complex the mind is.

The amount of work Tobias had put into his quirk is more than what anyone would expect from a kid his age. His parents had to tell him to slow down and act like a kid because they were worried he was too caught up in his quirk. This was very apparent by the fact he had no friends at school.

He wasn't bullied by any means but he was just antisocial. It also didn't help that he found the other kids boring. Can't be helped considering he's got years on any of them. But that was going to change.

~~

"Tobias-kun, how many times have I told you to not use your quirk in class?"

Tobias, who was absentmindedly messing around, had accidentally used his quirk to make the card come to life as a butterfly and fly around the room.

"Oops, sorry sensei. It won't happen again." he said standing up to catch the butterfly before it turned back to a normal card, and he went back to sit down amidst the laughter of his classmates.

'Fortunately, small tricks like these don't cost nearly any stamina. It's good to know I could become a magician if I wanted to. Now with a wave of this card, I'm going to turn this chair into a girl! Nice.' he thought to himself.

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"Listen up, class. I told you yesterday we were having a transfer student, so I want you to be nice to her. You can come in now, Kyoka-chan." said his teacher, before the door opened.

Tobias now paying attention, looked at the door to see someone he recognized. A girl with dark purple short hair that's asymmetrical with lazy-looking eyes, like she's bored of life already. The other noticeable thing about her besides her hair was her ears, two long ears that end in a headphone jack.

'Hey, I remember that girl. She's the one with the quirk that turns her earlobes into headphones jacks that let her use her heartbeat to attack, defend, or hear things. Sensei said her name was Kyoka. That means I'm also the same age as the rest of the class. That's good, I'd hate to be too early or too late.' he thought before paying attention to his teacher.

"Class this Kyoka Jiro. She just transferred from another school. Go ahead and introduce yourself, Kyoka-chan." said his teacher.

"Hai. Hello, my name is Kyoka Jiro. Nice to meet you." she said before looking at the teacher.

"O-okay. Very good, Kyoka-chan. Everyone let's give her a warm welcome." she said before everyone greeted her, "You can sit over there next to Tobias-kun. Tobias-kun raise your hand so she can see you."

At his teacher's instruction, Tobias raised his hand, before Kyoka started walking over to the seat next to him. Once she sat down, Tobias took the opportunity to introduce himself.

"Hi, I'm Fukushima Tobias. Nice to meet you." he said before reaching his hand out for a shake.

"Kyoka Jiro." she said before reaching out with two fingers to shake his hand.

"Oops. Sorry. Force of habit." he said before retracting his hand and slightly bowing, which she reciprocated.

"Tobias. Does that mean you're not from Japan?" she asked.

"Born and raised. My mom is American, my dad is Japanese. That's where I got my name from and why I tried to shake your hand earlier." he explained.

"Oh. That's cool." she said before going back to paying attention.

"Alright class, please bring out your math textbooks. Kyoka-chan share with Tobias-kun for today." said their teacher.

"Here, let me." said Tobias before scootching his desk closer to her.

"Thanks. Sorry for the trouble."

"Don't worry about it."

~~

After math class was lunch, so a lot of the students began to take out their bento to eat. Tobias, however, was a little different.

Kyoka seeing Tobias take out a deck of cards instead of a bento box had a look of confusion on her face. She then looked at her box and looked like she made up her mind.

"Did you not bring a bento? I can give you some of mine as thanks for earlier." she said to him.

"Hmm? I brought my own." he said before pulling out a card and showing it to her.

"Uhh, what's that? A card game or something?" she said confused.

"No, it's my bento. See." he said moving it closer so she can read the card.

"Storage card. Contains a bento. Huh?" she said even more confused.

That's right. Tobias was able to make a card that stored items. His very own inventory. Well not entirely. Tobias wanted to create a permanent storage space that had a lot of space for things but realized it would be impossible at the moment. So, he decided to try to store single items and it worked. Storing a single item cost a lot less, but the bigger the item, the more stamina. Something the size of a bento box only cost 5%. And it kept the bento fresh.

"You want to see some magic?" said Tobias with a smile, seeing an opportunity to have some fun with his new classmate.

"Uhh, I guess."

"Okay. See this card. There's nothing odd about this card." he said turning it each and every way.

"Okay."

"Now there's nothing up my sleeve either. Nor is there anything on my desk or inside it." he said.

"Right."

"Now I'm going to make this card disappear and a bento will magically appear." he said before putting the card on his desk and snapping his fingers. A small puff of smoke, for dramatic effect, later and a bento magically appeared on his desk.

"Tada!" he said waving his hands and looking up to see a blank stare on her face.

"So your quirk has to do with cards?" she asked.

"Oh come on. Weren't you wowed? Weren't you amazed by the act of magic before your very eyes?"

"No." she said with a small smile before turning to eat her bento.

"Tobias-kun." said the looming figure of their teacher.

"Oops."

"What did I say about using your quirk in class?" she said.

"Uh, something along the lines of not to. I think."

"That was my fault sensei." said Kyoka, speaking up for Tobias.

"Was it now? So, you can use cards in your quirk as well Kyoka-chan?" Sensei asked her.

"Uhh."

"Sigh, day one and already being influenced by our resident troublemaker." sighed their sensei.

"Oh come on, sensei. Troublemaker is too much, I'm more of an accidental class clown. Besides, I'm the best student in our year, so troublemaker paints me out to be a delinquent." said Tobias a little offended at the word.

"Tobias-kun final warning. I've told you to bring a bento normally. But if you must use your quirk, don't add the smoke effect. It disturbs the other students." she reprimanded before walking off.

"Thanks for trying to take the blame for me. I must've wowed you with my magic." he said with a smirk.

"Please." she said before rolling her eyes and going back to eating her lunch.

"You know something about my quirk, what's yours?" asked Tobias in between bites of his lunch.

"Don't you see my earlobes?" she asked making her headphone jacks move around.

"I thought it might've been a change because of your parents. It's hard to guess, you know. But, I like it. It's cool."

"Cool? My quirk?" she asked confused.

"Yeah. Well, I don't know what it does exactly, but I like your ears. It looks cool." he said.

"Thanks." she mumbled unbeknownst to either of them that the tips of her ears were red.