~~~~~~
If school had been rough before, it became a whole different story the moment my father had been publicly arrested as a villain. Honestly, I was impressed at the speed with which rumors had begun circling, it had only been one weekend and already I was being glared at as if I had personally gone out and murdered a family of five. People whispered so loudly you'd think their sole purpose was to try and make me hear.
"Isn't she like- a criminal?"
No, I'm not, but I might become one if you can't learn to whisper below sixty decibels.
"I heard her dad ran the Yakuza!"
Hah, if he did then he would've been able to afford a better house. I wish. Also what kind of Yakuza leader would get arrested like that?
"She's a crack addict, dude! Stay away from her!"
Where did this one even come from? Was cocaine really so easy to buy that they think a middle schooler could do it?
And so on and so forth, the whispers seemed to follow behind me like a shadow wherever I went. Well, at least the concerning rumors did a good job at keeping people away from talking to me. And as an added bonus, whenever I even remotely glared in someone's direction, they'd take a few steps backwards. At least the incident meant people would leave me alone.
"Hey, you! The fuckin' sludge girl!" A familiar voice yelled from literally across the opposite end of the hall. Katsuki Bakugou.
Correction: almost everyone would leave me alone. "Uhm… Sorry I don't know anyone by that name." I laughed awkwardly, and looked around the halls, praying he was talking to literally anyone other than me. But obviously he wasn't. Everyone within a twenty meter radius had already backed away.
"Don't act fucking stupid! You know I'm talking to you!" He shouted way above an appropriate volume. To think I had thought peoples whispers were loud just a minute ago, I owe them an apology.
"Did I do something to you…?" I asked, genuinely curious what I had done to trigger the walking pipe bomb that was Bakugou.
"Did you do something?!" He sputtered out like the idea of me not knowing was somehow absurd and unreasonable. "Your D-List villain bastard of a father held me fucking hostage! Now everyone in this shithole thinks I'm a weakling."
Oh. Of course, not only did my father have to go and get himself arrested in a massive public incident, he also decided to hold the most angry and loud person in my school hostage. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought his arrest was an attempt for him to specifically ruin my life as well as his own. "I'm sorry?" Were the only words I could muster, even though they sounded nothing like a genuine apology.
"The fuck do you mean 'you're sorry'?!"
"I meant what I said- uh, do you not understand the concept of an apology?" There was almost a smirk on my face before I saw small sparks forming in his hands.
"Of fucking course I understan-"
DING DONG
"Nazumi Hasui, Bakugou Katsuki, and Izuku Midoriya, please report to the counselors' office."
The intercom announcement interrupted any of Bakugou's retorts and left us standing in a completely awkward silence. Wow, they sure stepped in quick. "Well, uh, guess I have to go to the counselors office. See you later." I waved and walked off, trying to walk as fast as I could to get away from him and avoid the classic 'heading in the same direction after a conversation ended' cliché.
Apparently that thought never even crossed Bakugou's mind and he took my speed-walking as some sort of competition. "They called my name too, dipshit!"
With every step he got faster, I also increased my speed in an attempt to stay a socially acceptable distance away from him, leading to what could only be described as the dorkiest race in the world and by the time we were in front of the counselor's office, we were both breathing heavily, me more than him.
Opening the door revealed a bundle of green hair. "A-Ah! H-Hey there, Kacchan!" Even with our intense speed walking contest, the green-haired boy, who I now knew was Izuku Midoriya, had made it before us both. He was standing in front of the counselor's desk.
"Tch, whatever, Deku."
What exactly was the relationship between these two? Previously, I had just assumed Bakugou was a stereotypical bully, picking on the quirkless kid, but why the heck are they calling each other by pet names? Maybe this is just a weird type of friendship beyond my comprehension. It's not like I had any friendships of my own to compare it against.
"I'm glad all three of you showed up." The counselor smiled calmly, ignoring their interaction. "You see, I called all three of you here because of your school applications."
"Is something wrong with mine?" I wondered aloud, trying to seem as disinterested as possible.
"No, nothing is wrong, of course. It is simply that all three of you have decided to apply for U.A." Immediately I could feel Bakugou's glare staring a hole in my head. "You see, there is nothing wrong with setting your sights high, but I hope to confirm that all three of you have backup plans, should you not pass the U.A. Entrance Exams."
Nodding my head, I said, "Of course. There's no reason why I'd put all my hopes in one school." Did I seriously apply to U.A.? What the hell was going through my head? It was one of the closest schools to Aldera, but I should've avoided that place like the plague.
Both Bakugou and Midoriya seemed significantly less confident about any 'back-up plans' they might have.
"Well, I am only telling you three to keep your options open. Such young potential shouldn't be squandered." He smiled. "Even if you do not make it into U.A. you still have plenty of opportunities elsewhere."
Bakugou scoffed at his words. "As if I'll fail."
The counselors simply laughed. "Of course, of course. Well, that was the only reason I called you three here today. If you want to change your school applications, I am here to help the process."
And with that, he dismissed us.
I expected to finally be free after that, but Bakugou immediately yelled. "I told you not to apply to fuckin' U.A. Deku! You quirkless bastard!"
Midoriya looked like he was about to stutter out an apology, "K-Kacchan… I-I…" he paused, tightening his hand into a fist. "I'm going to become a hero… S-Somebody told me that I could become a hero..." He actually stood up for himself.
"Huh?! What did you say to me?!" Bakugou stomped forward.
Normally, I wasn't the confrontational type. Hell, I was considering just walking away as soon as I saw them fighting, but some stupid part of me was annoyed at Bakugou. "Stop it. You aren't in charge of what schools people apply to, dude." Show as little emotion as possible.
Surprisingly, Bakugou backed off, just glaring at me. "I'll talk to you later, sludge girl. Don't think I forgot about what your shithead father did." His eyes were filled with a strange emotion and he stomped off. Could he end a conversation normally for once?
"Ugh, I hate this school…" I muttered, walking away as well. I had to get back to my classes after all. "Good luck at making it into U.A., Midoriya." I said as I waved and walked away. It was rare for me to be encouraging like that, but it's not like it'd hurt to be nice once in a while.
The rest of the school day passed by, with me paying very little attention to my actual classes. I was stuck thinking about the damned school applications. It was like some annoying itch I couldn't scratch, thinking about applying to a school for heroics. And I hated it.
~~~~~~
After school, Bakugou finally confronted me.
"You fucking bitch!" He shouted, an explosion acting as a period to his sentence.
We were outside of the school now. "Look, I'm sorry about what my dad did, but y'know, I didn't tell him to do it to you."
"Hah?! Really? Because isn't it mighty convenient that you just happen to apply to U.A., same as me? And your bastard sludge dad just happens to target the only competition you have?" He tilted his head, an overwhelming sense of rage obvious from his expression alone. Clearly he'd been stewing on this for the whole day.
"I didn't even plan to apply to heroics- plus, it's a school entrance exam, we're not competing." Explaining myself did nothing to his rage. Luckily he hadn't actually gotten violent.
"You're a fucking liar, Hasui. I see right through your bullshit." He stepped closer.
I wanted so badly to yell back at him, but I had enough experience with angry people in my life to know that it never worked. "I'm sorry. I'm wrong, you win, you're such a smart hero. Congratulations, you foiled my evil plot. Truly deserving of the honor of U.A High." I stoically waved my hands up and laced my voice with as much sarcasm as I could muster. "There, happy now?"
He sputtered, the boiling rage getting caught in his throat. "You- You fucking-" He took a step back. "You'll never be able to be a hero. You won't even make it past the fucking entrance exams, Sludge Girl." At least his accusations about me somehow orchestrating his situation stopped.
"I'm not even aiming to be a hero, I just looked up the three closest schools and wrote them down."
"Bullshit. You don't just write down U.A Highschool and forget it's a hero school." He said.
He was right, U.A was the kind of prestigious school that even some foreigners would recognize. "Well, I did. Not like I have any chance of passing the entrance exams, so why do you care?" It was easy to throw his own words right back at him.
He paused to look at my face. "Your negative nancy shtick pisses me the hell off, sludge girl. You might trick other extras with your excuses but it's plain as fucking day to see that you want to be a hero." He stated so bluntly, as if he had any idea what it was I wanted. It was so annoying.
"Pfftt, you really think that? You're more delusional than I thought." I began walking away from him, making sure to brush my arm past his. Hopefully he didn't notice the slime touching him and copying his quirk.
If he noticed, he didn't say anything about it. "I'm going to be the only person from this crappy public school to make it into U.A High School, understand?!" He yelled back at me as I walked away. "You and Deku should both remember it!" He pounded his fist to his chest, resulting in a small explosion. "I'm the strongest!"
"Of course, you're Grade-A hero material!" Was all I said, walking away with a wave and hearing him shout a string of curses before stomping off in another direction.
Once I was sure I was far enough away, I let out the biggest sigh of my life.
Man, people who want to be heroes are terrifying. His words played in my mind, 'You won't even make it past the fucking entrance exam.' Something in those words drove me up a wall. There was no way he was right about me wanting to be a hero, but still, the idea of seeing his face when he's not the only person to graduate into U.A…
Hell, if the quirkless green-haired friend of his pulled out an underdog victory then Bakugou would only be one of three people from this school to make it into U.A.
Call me petty, but that was the moment I decided to try and train for the U.A. entrance exams.
~~~~~
Walking home, I'd decided to stop at a nearby park and test my quirk. It's a bit embarrassing how much of an impulsive decision it was for me to try and suddenly join U.A High. I mean, most people spend their whole lives dreaming of this place and I'd just decided to take their entrance exam because… some annoying guy from my school said I couldn't? But it's not like I seriously expected to pass the exam anyways, so no harm in at least trying, right?
My quirk is simply named "Slime" a name that is both unimpressive and entirely accurate. Seeing as it's a lame quirk, a lame name makes sense as well. It allows me to turn a relatively small portion of my body into slime, as well as create more slime using water and carbohydrates from my body. The end result is a quirk that can't really be used for offense at all, and can barely be used for defense.
My control over the slime is limited to the slime that is in direct contact with my body, so I have no telekinetic control over it or anything like that once it leaves my body. Arguably, the most useful ability the quirk grants is that if given enough time and water it could allow me to regenerate from pretty much any injury, at least hypothetically.
See, since the quirk lets me transform into slime (partially) and create new slime (weakly) it technically allows me to recover from injuries. Say, if I were to cut off a finger, almost immediately my body would turn the injured area into slime and create new slime to make up for the lost finger. I definitely didn't learn this from a cooking accident. Definitely not. Regardless, my quirk could hypothetically regenerate full limbs given enough time, but I'm not so eager to test that theory out.
If I were to point at the real "power" of my quirk though, it'd be my ability to copy quirks… sort of. If my slime makes contact with someone's body then I can copy their quirk and add it into my "shelf" of quirks, as I like to think of it. Once I copy a quirk, it gets added onto the shelf as a new book I can "read" and use. However, there's limited space, I can only copy around 10 quirks. Plus, using more than one quirk at a time is only "possible" in the same way reading two books at once is possible. It completely splits my focus. But if I memorize two quirks completely, theoretically I could use them simultaneously.
Now, with all that, you'd think "Wow, that's a pretty powerful copy quirk." If you ignore the fact that… The copied quirks only affect the parts of me that are slime. And since I can barely transform one hand into slime for twenty minutes… You begin to see the issue. The effects of copied quirks are also wildly inconsistent. I could copy two different, seemingly identical, fire quirks and one of them would make my slime sort of warm and the other would light my slime on fire. It's a total crapshoot.
Holding out my hand, a small pool of slime formed in my palm as I focused my mind on my new copy of Bakugou's quirk. The mental book opened and filled my mind with information of his quirk. Apparently his quirk didn't just create explosions out of nothing, it turned his hand's sweat into an explosive chemical. Which meant my copied version of his quirk partially infused my slime with a similar substance. In practice, this meant I was now holding a small liquid bomb in my hands. Honestly, I was a bit scared to activate it properly. But hey, nothing new is learned from not trying.
BANGGG.
The resounding sound of an explosion immediately turned all nearby eyes towards me and I shook my arm in pain. "Okay, fuck, ouch… bad idea…" I awkwardly looked around from the bench I sat at and pretended like I wasn't the one who just made the loud sound. The top of my hand had instinctively turned to slime in an attempt to shield myself from the blast, which, since it was still copying Bakugou's quirk, led to a chain reaction, making an explosion far bigger than I intended and leaving my ears ringing.
Okay, so that was definitely a bad idea. Although my quirk let me copy quirks, it did nothing to give me any of the resistances the quirk's owner would have. So although I might be able to make explosions in my hand, my body was not built to handle the backlash. Normally my copy of quirks were significantly weaker than the base quirk, as if my slime tended to "water down" the effect of the quirk. But since Bakugou's quirk changed the chemical compounds of the slime fundamentally it must've been far more dangerous. That, In addition to the fact that I can create significantly more slime than Bakugou can create sweat, meant that my copy of his quirk was possibly the first useful thing my quirk had done in years. It was just as strong, if not stronger than his quirk. At least in terms of pure "explosiveness".
It was a bad idea to try and copy how Bakugou used the quirk though… Maybe if I just threw the slime I could trigger the chemicals and blow it up? Maybe, but it wouldn't work for long distances, and I'd still be in the blast zone. But it did seem like I could ignite it from a distance…
I'd already made enough of a scene though and I wasn't looking to get arrested for public quirk usage by throwing around explosive slime so I simply walked home in shame, the ache in my arm having almost fully healed by the time I was back at my house.
If I wanted to get into U.A, I was going to need to do more than just copy an explosion quirk.
~~~~~~~
The next few days went by slower than usual. My school life was similar, with people avoiding talking to me, but instead of simply ignoring my existence like before, they were now avoiding me out of some gross sense of fear. But hey, at least they were avoiding me still.
The only people who seemed willing to acknowledge my existence were the two others who were at the counselors office. On one hand, you have Bakugou, who whenever he sees me shouts something along the lines of "Sludge girl, get the fuck out of my way. You're a shitty extra. I'll fucking crush you, string of curse words, blah blah blah, et cetera." I've gotten used to tuning out most of his rants whenever we cross paths in the hallway at this point.
On the other hand, there was Midoroya Izuku, a boy so meek it felt like he'd apologize to an inanimate object for bumping into it. He didn't seem to share the same fear for me as the rest of the school, but his awkward attempts at conversation were somehow worse than listening to Bakugou's shouting.
"U-Um, it's great that you're aiming for U.A too, Hasui…! Let's both try our best! And- um- don't listen to what Kacchan says, he really means his best, he's just not great with encouragement. I'm sure he's telling you to do your best too in his special way, and um thank you for what you said and-" He rambled for another minute, leaving me to awkwardly try and digest all that he said.
"Sure. Uh… Plus Ultra?" Was that really my best response? Wow, I'm more socially inept than I recognized. But still, even that much seemed to make him smile so I suppose it's okay.
Outside of the two weirdo's I occasionally spoke to at school, my life had changed in another way.
I've started training. That is to say, I've emulated a child's idea of training. I tried looking up strength training routines but there was too much to piece together a real routine. So I'd just ended up doing push-ups and running like a psychopath until I nearly vomited and passed out for the last few days. I could barely run a couple of kilometers before my legs gave out on me. If I wanted to even have a chance at passing the entrance exam and rubbing it in everyone's face then I'd need to improve drastically over the next ten months in preparation for U.A's entrance exam.
I'd started taking the longest route home just as an excuse to run more and exercise. Which meant the sun was already setting when I made it back to my house. And… There was someone standing at the door.
"Um, hello…? Can I help you?" The man had a pair of wings and was obviously distracted by his phone. He was wearing a jacket that seemed inappropriate for the spring weather. But at the same time, he was familiar in a way I couldn't place.
His eyes looked up from his phone. "There you are! Sheesh, I'd started to get worried you'd run away, that would've meant so much more work." His grin was the opposite of reassuring.
"Sorry, should I know you…?"
"Oh, didn't they tell you? The Hero Public Safety Commission sent me to check in on you." He leaned casually against the entranceway to my house. So this was the babysitter they sent?
"Oh, okay. Well, I'm still alive, I guess? Is that all?" He was blocking the way into my house. "Do I recognize you from somewhere?" The familiarity of his face was seriously starting to bug me.
He laughed openly. "You're tellin' me you don't recognize the number three hero?" Oh. That definitely made sense. Vague memories of my father ranting about a winged hero played back in my mind.
"Sorry, the only heroes I'm really familiar with are All Might and Endeavor." I shrugged. "Don't you have hero work to be doing or, y'know… something other than checking in on me? Couldn't they have sent someone else?"
"The HPSC seems to think I have more time than other heroes just because my quirk allows me to travel faster than most airplanes." He said, there was a hint of something in his eyes. Was he lying?
My shoulders shrugged. "Sounds like a pain in the ass. You should quit. Can I go inside my house now? I'm tired."
"Hah!" He laughed loudly, holding his stomach. "Man, you're a riot, kid. You remind me of myself a few years back, that's hilarious." He rubbed a tear from his eye from the laughter. I don't think I said anything that funny, really. But at least I managed to make a top hero laugh, if I was someone more obsessed with Heroes then that'd probably be written on my tombstone. "Before you retreat back to your cave, I have a question or two for you."
"…It's not a cave, but okay." If answering a stupid question let me go eat ramen and sleep then I'd tell this guy my social security number if I had to.
His expression softened. "How are you handling it?" He asked vaguely.
"Handling what? Your presence? I'd say I'm handling it pretty well, all things considered."
He smirked, "No, not that." His expression returned to that neutral, almost concerned, face. "Your father's arrest. How are you dealing with it? It's not an easy thing to go through."
Sure, it was rough being raised by a villain but stop looking at me with that pitiable face, sheesh. What would you know about my situation, Mister Hero? "I'm dealing with it just fine. It's nice to have the house to myself." I lied easily.
He shrugged. "Alright, if you say so. There have just been cases of the children of villains going on to do some dangerous things."
Oh, so that's why they sent a hero instead of a normal employee, they were worried I was going to go down the same path as my father and they wanted someone capable of arresting me to make sure I stayed in line. Not only were my classmates spreading rumors that I was going to turn out to be a villain, the literal government was as well. "I answered your question. Can I go in now?"
"One more question." He said, and I groaned. "Don't worry, it should be a quick one. Would you want to work for the Hero Public Safety Commission?" He said, calmly. But his look of disgust somehow made it seem like the least appealing job in the world.
"No? Why would I even want to do that?" I was still in junior high. I didn't think the HPSC was in the business of hiring children.
He didn't answer that. "Great! Those were the only questions!" He said, something akin to relief in his eyes.
"Can I go inside now?" My impatience was clear as day.
"Totally, that should be enough time to appease them and their dumb questions." He laughed and moved out of the way of the door.
Great, I could finally get some actual rest after training. Wait… A thought crossed my mind as Hawks' flapped his wings, about to leave. "Actually- You're a top hero, right?"
"Yeah, practically the best. Why?" His wings fell down. "You need to report a crime or something?"
"I'm uh-" God, I sounded so dumb and awkward, this was the best opportunity my stupid life had given me. "I want to go to U.A. High School. Can you help me train?" Hopefully that didn't sound too desperate.
"Oh? Right after you rejected my glamorous offer to work for the HPSC?" There was no real disappointment behind that statement like I'd have expected. "Well… Despite what the commission thinks, I am a pretty busy person." So that was his answer.
He cut off my train of thought with his next words- "…But I should be able to offer you some help. The actual training would still be all on you, but I can give you some diet plans and training routines from when I was a kid, how's that sound?"
"Really…?" It was almost too good to be true.
"Yeah, I don't see why not. I'll give you them when I check in next week, until then just focus on exercising your quirk and eating higher protein foods." He waved his arms.
My eyes widened. "Seriously? Does ramen count?"
He laughed, "In what world is ramen high in protein? Just try to balance your diet with more meat and eggs and stuff."
"Well, technically my quirk is more effective when I eat foods that are high in starch and sodium, so eating instant ramen isn't unhealthy, it's a strategic decision rooted in years of knowledge." I nodded my head calmly.
To my surprise, he didn't immediately discredit my ramen theory. "Every quirk has different dietary requirements, sure. But if you're hoping to gain any muscle you need to eat protein as well. If you made it into U.A then they'd probably restrict your diet more, but I'm not as strict as them, so just eat enough protein and calories for the muscles you're trying to grow."
"Hmm… Alright, I'll try." I said with as little enthusiasm as I could. I held out my hand to him, hoping to offer a handshake in an attempt to copy his quirk.
"That's the spirit! I'll leave it to you then." He accepted the handshake without a second guess and I created as little slime as possible to touch his hand. At worst, he'd probably just assume I had sweaty palms. "Have a good one, kid! Good luck on your hero dreams." He pointed a finger gun at me and then his wings soared up and flapped him away, leaving me in a heavy silence.
Yet another person wrongly assumed I was doing this to follow a fake dream of becoming a hero.
When I went inside and ate ramen, I made sure to cook extra beef and eggs to go alongside it.
"I hope all Pro Heroes aren't that weird." Was my final thought as I cleaned up the dishes and went to bed. I'd figure out how exactly I should practice my quirk in the morning.
~~~~
The next week passed by in an instant. Mostly as a result of how tired my "training" had been making me. Doing quirk training alongside the already tiring running and push-ups left me feeling like I was about to pass out every second of every day. Not to mention, for the first time in my life I had started showing up to class on time and paying full attention to the lessons. Because of course U.A wouldn't let someone in on strength alone. So now I was playing catch-up on two fronts.
Honestly, I felt I had a better chance of acing the written portion of a hero exam than I did with the practical portion. It's easy to learn information, it's significantly harder to get strong. Even with a shoddy copy quirk. Balancing quirk training and physical training and studying was proving to be a hell of a task.
Speaking of quirk training… If you were to describe my idea of quirk training, I think it would be more accurate to call it "pollution."
Every night, after I was already exhausted from physical training, I would go back to my apartment and grab a bucket and a backpack full of water bottles, which were way heavier than they had any right to be. Carrying a bucket and a backpack like the world's least impressive fisher, I made my way to Takoba Beach.
And there, amidst the smell of decaying garbage, I would groan and sob in pain while pouring slime into the bucket until it was either full or I was so dehydrated my head started pounding. I'd then either dump the bucket into the ocean and start again or I'd chug a water bottle and then fill it up further, pushing my quirk far past its usual limits. It was incredibly helpful, but it was definitely a miserable experience.
~~~~~
One night in particular, after I'd gotten used to the routine of admiring the night stars on my walk to the beach, I'd hear a grunting noise at the beach. Lo and behold, Midoriya was at the beach as well, dressed in a tracksuit, he was desperately pushing a fridge that refused to budge. He shoved the fridge for a solid minute before shrugging and picking up smaller garbage over the beach.
Huh, it looked like I wasn't the only one of the U.A hopefuls training at inappropriate hours. He didn't give any chance for me to run away and find somewhere else to dump slime before he noticed me. "Hasui!" He grinned and waved wildly. "Wow, it's funny seeing you here, what are you doing at Takoba so late? Ah- and what's the bucket for?" He said.
"Oh- uh…" I glanced between him and the bucket. "Just quirk training." I said, without explanation.
Somehow, after a few seconds, he understood completely what I meant. "Oh! Your quirk lets you create slime, right? That's really interesting! I wonder if training it would increase the output speed of the slime, or maybe it would just increase the efficiency of it, letting you make more? Does your diet change the consistency of the slime? Oh- can you move it independently of your body?" He stuttered through a laundry list of questions and ideas before ashamedly rubbing his neck. "Sorry, haha… "
"No, it's chill." I nodded. "I'm still figuring it out myself, so I can't really tell you much." Shrugging, I moved along to the beach's shore.
"I understand…!" He nodded.
"Well- uh, I'll just be training my quirk… Try and ignore my presence."
"Of course…!"
That night passed in an awkward silence as we both did our respective training. It wasn't like me and Midoriya disliked one another, or that we didn't have anything to talk about. This silence was simply the result of putting two socially awkward nerds on a beach together. By the end of the night we waved our goodbyes and went home.
I suppose actually talking to another human being wasn't the worst thing in the world. Maybe.
~~~~~
The most useful thing I'd gained from meeting the number three hero hadn't actually been his guidance or training routines. Because, although those were proving to be useful, they did very little for me in the short term. The most useful thing I'd gained, or more accurately, the most useful thing I'd wrongfully stolen without any permission at all, was his quirk.
Now, I know this might be hard to believe, but growing up, I wasn't always such a cynic. Let me paint a picture of my life at age six for you: a small girl, still with hope in her eyes that one day her quirk might be useful. This young girl with a weak copy quirk, naturally runs around the streets tapping every stranger she can find with her quirk (because her parents were downright negligent and her sister was at home studying).
Now imagine that same child, after weeks of doing this, with the only useful power she'd copied being a quirk that let her slime spin around in a circle. And now finally, imagine that child growing up with an older sister who's quirk is constantly being praised by everyone around her. This, as you would figure, is the story of my life.
So to have copied two actually useful quirks within a week of each other made me pretty damn excited. Since the copied quirks only affect the slime, it was pretty rare for them to do anything at all. Telekinetic quirks especially were a bad match for my slime. When I was younger, I had hoped that copying a telekinetic quirk would let me move around my slime in the air like a gross, gooey ghost. And since telekinetic quirks were so common it would have been easy, right? Nope.
What copying a telekinetic quirk actually did was give my non-sentient slime the ability to control things with its mind. Which it didn't have. Do you see how I struggled?
Hawks' quirk was different though. His wing quirk gives the hero the ability to telekinetically control his entire body; he flies through this control and his feathers and wings are an extension of that ability. Whereas telekinetic quirks are a dime a dozen, quirks that let their users control themselves were much rarer. The most popular hero who has a quirk like that is Captain Celebrity, the third highest ranked hero in America. And I'd managed to copy a quirk like that by pure chance.
Whereas telekinetic quirks required some degree of thought, Hawks' quirk functioned mostly by instinct and muscle movement, meaning that finally I could fulfill my childhood dream of moving my slime in the air.
The effect was… Well, I'm not going to complain, but my slime is a lot less strong than his feathers.
There was one more thing I wanted to test with it though, and luckily Takoba beach was empty that night.
The garbage on the beach seemed to glisten in the moonlight. "Hah… Okay, let's try…" In my hand, a pool of slime formed and then floated slightly above it with the use of Hawks' quirk, as well as taking on a form that… sort of resembled a ball if you squinted. Using the quirk felt like moving an extra limb, or in the case of my watered down version of the quirk, a finger. But still, I used all my mental energy to send the little ball of slime flying at a nearby microwave. It hit the target dead on with a splat… And now comes the fun part.
Quickly, I stopped copying Hawks' quirk and switched to Bakugou's quirk. I had to act quick before the slime dripped away, but I activated the ignition of his quirk.
With a blast, the slime exploded. It was much smaller than the last time I used Bakugou's quirk, but it was still enough to shatter the microwaves glass and knock it over.
And… Holy shit, my quirk had actually managed to cause destruction to anything other than me. It was dumb, but I was grinning to myself as I formed another ball of slime and launched it again, exploding the microwave beyond recognition. "Haha… Hah! Yes!" My cynical facade faded for a second as I laughed like an idiot at my mediocre accomplishment.
As dumb as it is, in that moment… I felt like I might just have a chance at passing the U.A. Entrance Exams.
Once I'd exhausted my quirk thoroughly and practiced the attack, I walked home in a happy silence, the spring winds feeling as if they were soothing my aching muscles. Ten more months of training were all I had to pass this exam. Realistically, I'd fail. But somewhere, buried in the back of my mind, was a shred of hope.
