3 Settling Scores

"Hey, mom," I suddenly spoke up to break the silent routine breakfast I'd been sharing with Inko the past couple of days.

"What is it, sweetie?"

"I have a Quirk," I said before nonchalantly shuttling a mound of rice into my mouth.

"What?" For a second, it looked like what I said was completely incomprehensible.

However, in response to her lack of understanding, I simply pulled up my shirt and undershirt and showed her to see the crystal that replaced my heart and stretched outward all the way to my chest.

"Izuku! When did this happen?!" Inko's sudden thrashing nearly tossed her food off the side of the table.

"Five days ago." And before she could ask, I added, "I wanted to test what my Quirk could do before telling you about it."

"That's… so dangerous! Izuku, why didn't you tell me immediately?! Don't you know you're supposed to get checked by a doctor right away if you manifest a Mutation Quirk outside the normal family line?! You have a crystal taking up the space where a heart would rest on your body!"

"Relax," I narrowed my eyes at her. "You should know more than most how seriously I regard even the most trivial bit of information when it comes to Quirks. I know what I'm doing."

"Relax? Who do you think you're talking to, mister?!"

"Is that the card you want to play? You'd have me shut up in the face of parental authority?"

Ignoring her attempt to continue bickering, I stood up and coldly said, "What would it even have mattered if we went to a Quirk doctor? They were wrong when they said I was Quirkless, so why trust them?"

Seeing her flinch, I sighed, "Besides, I thought, you'd be happy to see this kind of turn in my life."

"I am… It's just, you worry me."

"Well, I'm going to start worrying you a hell of a lot more after I start going to U.A." She flinched at my casual swearing.

"U.A? You think you can become a hero with your Quirk?" Though she tried to conceal the doubt in her eyes, it was a poor attempt at best.

"Why don't I tell you more about my Quirk and you can decide for yourself whether or not I'll be good enough for U.A." I didn't even try to hide my contempt.

"Commando," I chanted. With a red glow emitting from my left thigh, a greatsword easily as long as I was tall materialized in my hand. "In essence my Quirk allows me to cultivate and make use of magical energy through my Crystal Heart; hence its name. One of the ways I can use magical energy is by materializing weapons."

After showing her a greatsword, polearm, and pistol, I chanted, "Ravager." A blue glow followed from my right thigh, and in the span of five seconds, made sure she saw me teleport all around the kitchen. "Two more useful ways I can use my magical energy is through short-range teleportation and the use of offensive elemental spells."

Walking up to a window, I opened it, aimed and chanted, "Thunder." The look on Inko's face when a streak of lightning shot out of my hand could only be described as precious.

"Synergist," I chanted once more, this time followed by a purple glow originating from my right forearm. "Of course, aside from elemental spells, I can also use buffing spells on myself and others."

"Bravery," I chanted before picking up an apple and crushing it to fragments with just my right thumb and index finger.

"I can also cast debuffing and healing spells, but without targets around, it would be pointless at best to even try showing you," I said and returned to the table.

For a time, Inko looked like she didn't even know what to say. But eventually, she asked, "How did you even learn all that?"

"Now you're starting to see my point," I smiled. "My Quirk is obviously not even close to normal. It's part Mutation, part Emitter, and since I woke up five days ago with it, I've just instinctually figured out how to use it. It would probably take months or years for a Quirk doctor to figure all of that out, if they figure it out at all."

Inko didn't say anything even as the seconds turned to minutes, so I asked her, "So, am I or am I not good enough to make it at U.A?"

She looked conflicted as she said, "You… Your Quirk is definitely stronger than many pros; considering you just awakened it, it probably has the potential to compete with the very best."

"Is that a yes?" I knew she was just being a concerned mother, but her way of dodging the question was starting to annoy me.

"Yes… Just, try not to worry me too badly while you become a hero."

...

I didn't tell Inko as much about my powers as I'd learned over the week or so I'd been sneaking around after school to practice with them. But then again, if showing her that I could literally summon and shoot lightning wasn't good enough to show her my capabilities, nothing I said would matter.

Besides, It'd be a pain trying to explain the brands on my body to her and their stages of evolution. Speaking of, several had already entered Stage 2; namely, my Commando, Ravager, and Synergist Paradigm brands. As a result, the magical energy within my Crystal Heart increased by 50% and I learned how to use a couple new spells and abilities.

Still, I couldn't teleport very far unless there was a warp-strike point for me to toss a sword. I also couldn't teleport more than six or seven times without needing a moment of rest. And most of the weapons I knew how to materialize as a Commando were too expensive for me to even think of making.

All in all, I think my set of skills and growth were pretty good, having only spent five days living my new life.

"Sensei, I challenge that spineless freak, Deku, over there to a boxing match!" Katsuki's obnoxiously loud voice brought me out of my thoughts.

It was currently fifth period, physical education, and after we had finished our standard class workout, our coach had allowed us to freely choose between sports to kill the rest of our class time.

I wish I'd the patience to ignore the blond brat, but after five days of endless taunting — not just from Katsuki, but literally everyone who assigned me the status of a helpless and worthless Quirkless — I'd had enough.

"Spineless, you say?" I smiled a cheshire smile that threatened to split my face as I turned to our coach, "Instead of a boring and old fashioned boxing match, will you let me spar against Kacchan?" Feigning innocence, I added, "I recently awakened my Quirk and I want to see if it'll be good enough for Kacchan to practice using his for the U.A. Entrance Exams."

"WHAT?!"

The coach ignored Katsuki's outburst, though he did start sweating as he felt the explosive blond's murderous intent. "Er… as long as you two agree to it and don't go killing each other… I guess it's fine."

"Perfect," I hummed as the coach walked us out to the school gymnasium with the rest of our class tailing us. Even the people that were already inside setting up to play volleyball and basketball joined in watching after news of our fight reached their ears.

Thus, by the time a sparring ring had been set up for us to fight in, our entire class and teacher stood on the sidelines watching.

"Synergist," I glowed purple, causing everyone to look at me.

"Bravery," I glowed white and felt the physical power of my body explode.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, you cheating bastard?!" Katsuki all but screamed.

"I'm preparing myself for our fight, idiot. You of all people don't get to complain, seeing as the workout routine we did earlier worked up a good sweat, right?"

As Katsuki scoffed and silenced himself, I continued casting, "Faith," glowing white once more as I felt the energy within my Crystal Heart expanding.

"Barfire," I glowed a dim reddish-white and smirked at the thought of cancelling out close to half the danger of Katsuki's Explosion Quirk.

"Commando," this time glowing a more pronounced red, I materialized my Engine Sword before switching, "Ravager."

"Alright bomb boy," I waved my sword dismissively at him, delighting in the hatred he bled, "I'm good to go."

On the coach's mark, Katsuki blasted himself across the ring to catch me with an outstretched right hand. Unfortunately for him, I teleported a foot to his right and brought my Engine Sword up to strike him in the gut; handle-side up, of course. Then, with a less-than-merciful kick, I launched his body a good two meters away.

'Bravery is so fucking overpowered,' I thought happily as I approached Katsuki with the nonchalance of someone not in the middle of a fight.

"You know, I thought you would be at least a little harder to deal with," I taunted, much to the horror of everyone watching along. "It must be true, what they say about the smallest dogs having the loudest bark."

Suddenly, when I was within reaching distance, Katsuki who looked like he was still trying to catch his breath unceremoniously snapped his hand onto my right shin.

Boom.

"So you do still have some fight left in you," I ignored the quickly fading sharp pain his explosion caused my leg.

"Good," I snorted and used the overwhelming strength Bravery provided to backpedal a couple paces before he could try to use another explosion.

"Hmph! You think you're hot shit just cause you have a Quirk now? Don't forget you're ten years behind me, Deku," Katsuki said as he shot up to his feet and once more charged me.

"And yet you still fall for the same mistakes," I narrowed my eyes as I teleported behind him just as he was about to touch me.

Boom.

I'm not going to lie, the explosion to the face certainly caught me off guard. But, with Barfire going on strong, I hardly felt it. So, in spite of taking another hit, I reached out with my free hand and caught his offending arm.

Crack!

Katsuki hissed as he should have after I shattered his forearm. Yet, he still had the capacity to ignore his pain and propel his still-working hand to smack me in retaliation.

Alas, I chanted, "Sentinel," and tanked the attack as I stared him down, feeling like time had crawled to a snail's pace.

He seemed to be smiling maniacally at me, and that's when I heard the cracking coming off his palm.

As I registered the smoldering heat of what would end up being one of his bigger explosions, I steeled my nerves and subvocalized, "Rav—"

Boom!

Minutes later, a swarm of pro heroes and police would arrive to investigate the cause of the explosion that shattered all the windows at our school. Minutes later, our coach would get fired and sued for endangering the lives of all his students.

But, right after the explosion, right as the dust cleared and our audience beheld the sight of its aftermath. As some worried that I had perished, I announced my survival with a coldness unlike any I'd shown thus far.

"Did you just try to seriously kill me?"

To his credit, Katsuki looked rather aghast after the smoke cleared and not even my corpse remained. Perhaps that was the reason I didn't cross the point of no return and kill him in return as I withdrew my sword from its lodged position on the gym wall over thirty meters away and threw it at him for a Critical Warp Strike.

I completed the action nonetheless, throwing the sword, teleporting, catching the sword and going for the fatal blow. Only instead of decapitating him, I merely nicked his neck, drawing a thin line of cut flesh, knocked him in his daze to the floor, and stabbed my sword next to his face to emphasize how I truly felt.

"This is my win," I said as I got off of him and changed Paradigms.

"Medic," I glowed green from my chest and let the Engine Blade fade from existence.

"Cure," with another burst of green, the explosive imprint on my shin from when he grabbed me healed over as if it had never existed to begin with.

"Cure," with another bout of green, the patches of red — not-quite burns — on my face and shoulder that had mended from my first cast of the healing spell returned to being healthy ruddy skin. Sadly, I could do nothing about my utterly ruined gym uniform.

"Cure," with a final casting of my only healing spell, I patched Katsuki up and started walking away to get changed only to halt momentarily and smile.

My Medic Paradigm had evolved to Stage Two.