23 Chapter 23

It took a moment for the jumbled mess in my mind to clear up. I had grown up in Musutafu Japan with loving parents and an older sister. They all had minor quirks. My mom could temporarily increase her ability to memorize things. It sounds useful but was underwhelming in practice. She couldn't use it for more than 10 minutes a day and it wasn't even perfect memory just increased. My dad could alter his height 1ft in either direction. He transformed once years ago so that he was 1ft taller and then never used it again. My sister could slow her perception of time, but it didn't affect her ability to react to things. She loved quirk football. I was never a big sports person before, but when all the players were using superpowers it got crazy. She wanted to be a referee or a commentator.

When I was 4 I found out I was quirkless. I had been a bit disappointed, but my family was very accepting and helped me get over it. Knowing the stigma I would face as quirkless my mom told me to tell people I had a version of her quirk. I was an intelligent kid, so me having a non-distinctive intelligence quirk like my mom raised no questions.

Everything was going surprisingly good until my parents and sister were killed. While I was at school my parents and sister were caught in the crossfire of a hero and villain 'fight'.

I was an emotional wreck. I was desperate to find out what happened. It wasn't very hard someone had posted a video of it online. Endeavor was chasing a purse snatcher and he threw a fireball which missed. It blew up the building my family was in. Six people died including my parents and sister. The thief also had a fire quirk and took the blame for the attack. He was being charged with all those murders, but I knew who was responsible. I saw it.

I had no other family so I was sent to an orphanage. I would stay at that orphanage for years. No one wants to adopt a quirkless kid. The pain of loss only dulled never fully leaving. In its place grew an obsession with their murder. I followed everything Endeavor did. I stalked him. I learned about his family and his obsession with power, ambition, and pride. I wanted him to feel what I felt. I thought about how to kill him or his family. How I could hurt him. I realized I could kill him or his family, but I didn't want to just kill him, and killing his family would make me as bad as him. I wanted to destroy him. I needed to destroy his pride, power, and dreams. To do that I needed to be credible. If I took him down as a villain he would gain sympathy. I was a quirkless kid as a civilian it would be nearly impossible for anyone to take me seriously it would take decades before I was even taking seriously. If I was a fellow hero though then I would be a colleague. I would be someone whose identity is tied to credibility and fighting injustice.

At first, I thought it would be impossible, but as I grew up it started becoming at least marginally more possible. I was inexplicably bigger and better than my peers. I guess my body mod and perks activated early, but my younger self had no idea what was going on. I was a foot taller than every non-mutant classmate. I was stronger, faster, smarter, and better looking than every kid I had met. If they were stronger then me I was faster. If they were faster I was stronger. If they were faster and stronger I could outlast them. I barely had to sleep. I couldn't afford any martial arts lessons, but the library is free. I was always the first of my year. Languages were especially easy for me. I spoke fluent Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean, and German.

This isolated me from my peers. Then people found out about me being quirkless and they saw me as someone rising above their station. In my second year in middle school, I found myself in a lot of fights. I didn't know how, but I already knew martial arts and all of the fights let me get some practice for them. Of course, it was always my fault, so at the end of my second year, I was expelled. The director of the orphanage took inspiration from this and kicked me out. I spent that summer on the streets spending what little was left of my inheritance on food.

It wasn't going great, but it could always get worse. Then it did get worse. Sleeping on the street is obviously dangerous and I learned that the hard way. While sleeping a group of guys got the better of me and robbed me. I might have been able to take them, but I wasn't trying to pull anything against two guys with guns. They took everything I had left. Didn't even let me keep the clothes on my back. And that's how I found myself butt ass naked in a Japanese back alley.