School infinitely became more bearable now since I befriended Shinso. It’s been a week since our meeting on the rooftop and we’ve been hanging out with each other ever since. It helps since he’s a lot more mature than the rest of the kids at our school.

However, it was 2 days into our friendship when I realized just why exactly Shinso acts so differently than a regular elementary school kid.

We were walking down the corridor when the whispers started.

“It’s him..”

“What’s he doing with Kazuya, did he use his quirk on him?”

“He’s scary.”

“Villain…”

I got confused the first time I heard them. What the hell were they talking about? What villain?

It was when I looked at Shinso’s direction that I realized they were talking about him. He was trying his best to ignore the whispers but it was obvious that they were getting to him by the way he clenched his fists.

“I’m sure you wanna know what that was all about.” Shinso said to me with a shaky smile the moment we reached the rooftop. “I won’t lie and say I'm not curious. Did you do something to those kids? Why did they call you a villain?”

“It’s because of my quirk.” Shinso replied with a sigh. “My quirk is Brainwash. It allows me to take control of a person as long as they answer my question. With an ability like that, when people found out they immediately got scared because of its villainous nature.”

“Brainwash? That’s actually pretty impressive.”

It was obvious that my response threw him quite a loop. He was staring at me wide eyed like he just heard something unbelievable.

“W-What?”

I chuckled at his reaction. “Like i said, it’s pretty impressive. Imagine the things you could do with that as a hero. You could stop villains in their tracks with just words. You’ll be invaluable in hostage situations. Not to mention with no fights, you also prevent any form of property damage happening to the environment. There’s so many things you could do with it to help people.”

“You really think i could be a hero?” Shinso asks with nervousness. It’s clear that this is the first time he’s actually heard other people acknowledge him. It’s pretty crazy what words from other children could do to a person.

“Yep. I wanna be a hero too. It’s always been my dream to be one. I wanna be a person other people could rely on. A person that my parents can be proud of.”

Shinso looked at me with wide eyes. My declaration igniting something within him. “Me too. I wanna be a hero to prove that a quirk doesn’t define a person. That even a person with a villainous quirk like mine could use it to help people.”

I gained a wide smile after hearing him. I extended my hand to him, “Well then Shinso, let’s do our best to be heroes together.” Shinso with a wide smirk immediately took my hand with a clap.

“So, what’s your quirk?” Shinso asked me after we took out our respective lunches. “I call it Teleportation Tags. I can place these tags or markers on things that I touch. These tags allow me to teleport to wherever they’re located.”

“A teleportation quirk? Isn’t that like, super rare?” Shinso asked with a raised eyebrow. “Kinda yeah. Teleportation or warping quirks are very rare to come by. I only got mine because it was an offshoot of my moms.” I replied with a shrug.

We continued talking until the bell rang. I don’t know if it was my imagination, but Shinso seemed a lot more talkative after the whole ‘I wanna be hero” thing. Looks like it was something he kept in his chest for a long time, and is finally glad he could get it out.

— The Warping Hero —

As more time passes, the people at school finally realize that me and Shinso are actually friends. Of course due to this, the whispers and the chatter grew even more now that the supposed cool kid or the school is hanging out with resident outcast.

This of course caused even more flak to be put on Shinso’s name, but he proved his opinion on it by completely ignoring everything.

“I don’t care what they think of me now. I’ll prove them all wrong when I become a hero.”

Gotta say, that kind of grit is definitely worth respect.

But even so, i’m not just standing by while all this is happening. I always make sure to get involved if the jeering gets a little too much. Wouldn’t call myself his friend if I just let this all happen, would i?

With us having each other as our only friends from school, we often go to and leave school together. It helps that our houses aren’t that far apart and are both only a bus stop away from the school. Our city is relatively safer than most, since it’s the city that houses the most famous hero school in Japan, so even my paranoid parents are fine with letting me walk to school and home by myself.

Naturally, we visited each other's houses a lot and  this resulted in us getting to know each other's family. He even declared my family’s coffee shop as our ‘basecamp’. I have suspicions that the only reason he did that is because the food is good and my mom always gives his first order for free.

My childhood wasn’t that exciting, but it was pleasant.

I didn’t even notice when we finished our examinations and realized it was time for junior high.

We both decided to enroll in the same local junior high. And since we are both planning on making it to U.A., we both started our training.

We noticed pretty early on that both our quirks don't give much in terms of offensive capabilities. So we decided on practicing martial arts by registering for the combat classes at a dojo and joined a local gym. At the very least, we’d like to know how to defend ourselves and get some good physical conditioning. Our parents readily agreed to our decision and helped us find the best dojo that's within our price range.

We attended the combat classes throughout the holiday. It started out pretty tough at first but we managed to hold out until middle school started.

— The Warping Hero —

It was half a year into my first year in middle school and 7 months after starting my combat classes, did one of the instructors approach me. The dojo I joined also offers quirk training as one of the extra programs, which i immediately signed up for the moment i heard of it. Shinso opted to only stay in the martial arts classes because his quirk offers little to offensive capabilities so he’d rather put all his time in learning self-defense.

The instructor responsible for the quirk training was a former hero who retired from the line of duty after receiving an injury. He then decided to open up a dojo for people who want to learn how to defend themselves.

It was during one of the classes did I give him a suggestion.

“Knives? You want to practice blade combat with a knife?”

“Yes. Wielding short blades like knives give me more leeway in how to use my quirk. Having throwable projectiles would allow me to have better mobility.”

“Hmm that could work, wait here while i get training knives from storage.”

That’s how my training to become a hero started. My quirk is strong, but there are limitations to it. For one thing, the tags that i place on objects aren't permanent. They disappear overtime with my current limit being only 2 hours. There’s also a limit to how many tags I can place at a time. Right now, the maximum number of tags I can place is 10. I’m not too worried because the time limit and maximum number will definitely increase as I grow older. Each teleportation also takes a bit of my stamina so i can’t just spam all the time.

My quirk also has a few similarities to that of my parents. For one thing, I will always remember the locations in which my markers are placed. Whether they’re placed vertically on my bedroom door or on the hardcase of one of my textbooks. It’s like I can sense where they are and accurately determine if that location is safe to teleport to. Another thing I realized is that the tags are not limited by distance. Which means I could travel from Japan to America in a single blink as long as the tags haven’t expired and I have sufficient stamina to do so.

It didn’t take long for me and Shinso to be among the top in their combat classes. We were already in the advanced class to begin with and they’re well on their way to completing the course. Shinso has proven to be slightly better than i am when it comes to hand to hand combat, which can't be helped since i spend half my time fine-tuning my quirk and getting used to using it in combat.

Both of us have our own reasons to become heroes. And although those reasons may not be as noble as others, it doesn’t change the fact that we’re going to be the best heroes we can be.

—————————————————————————————————————

Sup

Hope you enjoy the chapter.

Just an introductory chapter with a little more detail towards Kazuya’s childhood.

I’m currently undecided on which students i wanna replace with Kazuya and Shinso in class 1A. Or if i should even put them in class 1B. Or maybe even split them up. I haven’s seen a fic focusing in 1B in particular and it shouldn't be that hard since the only event 1B missed in canon is the USJ.

In any case, we’re definitely getting closer to the famous U.A Examinations soon. Probably in the next chapter at the very least.

If you have any suggestions or ideas, feel free to voice them out in the reviews.

Cheers!