1 The Beginning After The End

Slowly, and with a lot of effort on my part, my eyelids slowly opened and an intense nausea hit me like a tonne of bricks.

Rolling to the side, I felt something push it's way up my throat and without having much of a choice, I opened my mouth for whatever was coming. Within seconds, my throat was undulating and I was gagging as I threw up onto the blue carpet next to whatever bed I was on.

'What the hell is happening...?' I groggily thought before I began to throw up some more.

Soon after this, I heard someone nearby rushing toward wherever I was. The light beyond the dark room I was in turned on and the door burst open, revealing a woman with black hair and green eyes who was looking to me with a worried look in her eyes, "Toshi, are you okay?" I heard the name and before I could even think of a response, the woman gasped before dashing off.

Left confused and still throwing up, I could feel some sort of panic attack brewing inside my chest. What the fuck was happening? Who was Toshi? Who was that woman? Am I Toshi?

In between the gagging, I was now hyperventilating and I got out of bed, stumbling and slipping on the wet floor. As I hit the ground, I stopped for a second, trying to wrestle control back over my body and my spasming diaphragm. It was at this point that I realized my hands...were too small. My body was too small. An entirely different color, as well. Opposed to the white I was so used to, I now saw olive brown skin on my arms.

The panic was back but this time I was prepared.

I slammed my eyes shut and began to control my breath. In and out. In and out. Systematic breathing that was neither too slow nor too fast. It was just...right. Calm.

Slowly, I gained control over myself just in time to open my eyes to the worried lady rushing back into the unfamiliar room I was in with a cloth.

"Toshi, are you okay? I know awakening your Quirk can leave you a little nauseous. Especially one related to your body," she started, "You should've told me if you felt bad before you went to sleep," she continued scrubbing away at the sick though the occasional worried glance to me left me feeling weird.

But before I could even tackle that weirdness, my mind focused in on one word she said.

Quirk.

My eyes lost focus and I felt a ringing in my ears as I thought about how I knew that word. It was from an anime called 'My Hero Academia'. It was the anime version of the Mutants from Marvel, is how I looked at it before I started reading the manga.

For a second, I thought I was dreaming. But the sour taste of bile and the burn at the back of my throat told me otherwise.

This was real.

It was at this point that I realized the woman had been speaking fluent Japanese. And I could perfectly understand her. The problem? I didn't know any other language other than English and a little bit of French. How could I fully understand someone speaking in Japanese? "What the hell--" I verbally whispered to myself only to have that come out in Japanese as well, spoken by a high-pitched and immature voice.

Something unsettling was beginning to build in my mind and my eyes, coming back into focus, darted around the now partially lit room.

Posters plastered the wall and figurines were placed on shelves. I recognized them all. All Might. Nighteye. Endeavor. Best Jeanist.

Then I felt it.

A brilliant surge of strength that flooded through all of my muscles and bones. An incredible sense of power that made it so I felt like I could lift a car with ease and swing it around like it weighed nothing. Alongside this strength came a feeling that I could move my limbs at speeds I couldn't even imagine. Alongside both of these feelings I realized that falling face-first onto my floor, even if it was carpet, hadn't even hurt. Not even in the slightest.

...My body felt like that of a juggernaut's. Like a living tank.

Then a different feeling appeared. But not from my physical body. No. It came from my mind, and within seconds, I felt memories popping up in my head.

A five-year-old boy who'd given up hope on awakening a Quirk. This boy's name was Wakatoshi Ushijima, nicknamed by those close to him as Toshi. But one day, when his mother was in danger of getting hit by a car...Toshi stepped up to the mark and just stopped the car. He'd finally awoken his Quirk. A very powerful strength-enhancing Quirk mixed with an Emitter-type Quick that empowers his limbs and joints.

That was yesterday. The body I'm in right now...is that kid's. That woman? This body's mom. Or would it be my mom? It's kinda confusing, honestly. I feel like I've taken on this kid's emotional connections to an extent...but I'm still me. Yet I do feel a need to be nice to this woman...kinda like a platonic love that's been passed on from the old Toshi to me...the new one.

Getting up and being careful of my new strength, I wondered over to the woman--my mom--and I kneeled down next to her and picked up another cloth before helping scrub away at the sick. It was the least I could do, after all.

. . .

It'd been a week since I arrived in this world, in this new body...and suffice to say, I'm still adapting to my situation.

A new life...is weird. I'm not complaining - far from it, actually. Before waking up a week ago, I was literally dying. I'd been in a car accident and I was in the process of being crushed by the metal around me when I passed out and woke up in my new body.

I realized a day after waking up that me passing out was in fact me dying in that car crash.

...Quite a harrowing realization to have, honestly. I mean, at least I get a second life? After all, I didn't really get to live much of a life the first time. I barely got to 17 the first time around due to immune deficiencies and whatnot...so a second shot was more than enough to make up for the death via vehicular manslaughter.

Right now, I stood in the middle of a room. A training room. Turns out, after all, that my family is fucking loaded. Why? Because I come from a family of Heroes, apparently. My dad was a hero, my grandparents were heroes - their parents before them, my great grandparents, were vigilantes who were active crime fighters before being a hero was a legal job. You could say I come from a family of prestige.

Sadly, this means I'm the product of a Quirk Marriage. A marriage with the intention to make a child with a Quirk that is superior to their parents'.

I mean, it's not like I'm unloved or anything and even when the old Toshi showed no sign of awakening his Quirk, my family were loving and fine with me. I suffered zero abuse and I wasn't shunned by them either. In fact, I had memories of my mom and dad seeming very in love with one another - they just started their relationship in a less-than romantic way. I guess it just...it just left me feeling a little like a science experiment, I guess. Though I assume those are feelings left behind by the old Toshi. Doesn't make those feelings any less mine, however. I am Wakatoshi Ushijima now, after all.

Anyway, my dad...isn't around. Died to a villain, as I was told. Which leaves me with my mom and my dad's parents who currently pay for just about everything with have.

My mom's a police officer - her Quirk is strong but it isn't the best, so becoming a Hero wasn't the best chance she had at helping people. She just took the better chance, or so she says to me. Or what I remember from my limited memories from this body.

Why am I in a training room? Because I'm with my gramps.

"Okay, Toshi-kun - give the target a punch!" his mustache spreading with his smile, my grandfather stood to the side of a massive punching machine. He towered over me and his heavily muscled form was much wider than my own childish frame. Translation: he was an absolute unit. This was what type of hero family I belonged to - one that started with a strength-enhancement Quirk, and one that continued to try and improve it.

Nodding, I turned away from the white-haired old man and back to the target. It'd be made especially for me, so it was at my height and within my reach - I wouldn't need to try hard to hit it. Just swing my fist and it'd hit.

Before we even attempted this, gramps had been teaching me how to throw a proper punch.

Neither the old Toshi nor me knew how, so it was a pretty good lesson. I spent most of my time indoors, out of necessity, so I wasn't the most active or experienced teenager you'd ever meet which meant I didn't know how to do a lot of stuff most people considered common knowledge.

Stepping toward the machine, I did a few warm-up punches into the air just in front of it. While doing it...something felt weird. Like I wasn't using my Quirk properly.

I had two Quirks. One, was a strength-enhancement Quirk called 'Power', and the other was an Emitter Quirk called 'Strong Arm'. The former came from my dad and the latter came from my mom. 'Power' gives the user immense physical strength and athletic ability, while 'Strong Arm' allows the person to move their shoulders (and therefore arms) with superhuman speed and force - which allows for incredible fast and strong punches. The aim of the Quirk Marriage was, if it's not obvious, to make a strong brawler who could hit like a freight train while also having super strength in other parts of their body.

But it seems both of those Quirks have merged and mutated beyond expectations. How so? Like I felt a week ago, I feel like I can move ALL my joints with incredible speed and force and not just my shoulder joints.

The force for a punch is built from the ground up. It starts with you feet, passes through your ankles and up your leg toward your hips where you twist your body to add more power to the punch. The strengthened force goes upwards from your hips toward your shoulders which are also twisted to add to the force of the punch.

...That's the last step. After that, your fist goes flying into whatever you're trying to hit.

So, 'Strong Arm' is such a good Quirk despite only enhancing the last step of a punch. And I feel like I can speed up and empower the other steps...I just can't understand how to do it for a punch.

Shaking my head, I decided to just do a normal punch...though there would be nothing normal about the punch I was about to throw.

Like I was taught, I built the force from the ground up and it travelled up my body as I added to it. Narrowing my eyes, I felt a change in my hips as the forcing was passing through them and in a moment of inspiration, they suddenly jerked and twisted quickly as I commanded them to. It wasn't stunningly fast or anything...but it was definitely faster than I would've been able to do otherwise.

The force, empowered by this step, shot up my back and the muscles along my spine tensed as I continued twisting my torso. Once the force got to my shoulder, the easy part was here.

Unlike the other joints, this one was where the Quirk originated from...so using it here was easy. Instinctive, even.

As soon as I activated the Quirk, my arm shot forth with the collected force and then some as it rocketed forward as a blur. Before even a tenth of a second had passed, my fist impacted the punching machine with a colossal bang as I found both my strength and the rebound it caused surprising.

Pressed into the ground, I ignored the creaking of the ground below me and the slight air turbulence my punch caused as I tried to stay in place.

In the end, a steady hand landed on my shoulder and stopped me in place before a hearty laugh echoed throughout the room, "Toshi-kun, you've got one hell of an arm on ya!" gramps began to laugh before he slapped me on the back, making me stumble forward a little, "Look at that! I doubt there's another five-year-old out there who can hit as hard as you can!" he pointed toward the screen for the punching machine where it showed the force and I looked to it.

Seeing the number on it, I felt amazement flood through my mind. I could feel the power in my body, sure...but to see it in numbers was an entirely different matter.

Dozens of thousands of pounds of force. Dozens of times stronger than even the strongest and heaviest hitters in my past life. Stronger than a Gorilla or a Bear. Enough to squash the head of a Bull. Enough to put down a Rhinoceros. Enough to put down or knock out an Elephant.

Inhuman force.

Looking away from the screen and toward my fist...I wondered what exactly I could do with this type of Quirk...How many people I could save.

"Well kiddo, let's get going. You've got school in an hour, so I don't wanna hold you up too much," granddad ruffled my hair up before going to leave but I stopped him soon enough when I realized I had more to show him.

Grabbing his sleeve, I tugged on it and he turned to look down at me with a curious expression.

"I can do more," I explained before his expression twisted in confusion. Seeing that expression, I decided to elaborate, "I...I feel like I can speed up the joints in other places. Like my legs," I explained and gramps' eyes lit up like Christmas trees. He turned around and continued to look down at me before pointing to the other side of the room.

"If you can speed up your legs, kid...Give it a try," he said with barely restrained excitement, "We should find the limits to how much your Quirk has mutated so we better know how to handle it," he gave a reason that caused me to roll my eyes - he just wanted to see if I could run fast as well as hit hard. If I could do both, my Quirk was much, much better than previously thought. It meant I could hit like a train while also being as fast as one.

Turning away from gramps, I settled down into a crude sprinting form and I closed my eyes. I reached for the muscles around my joints that weren't there in my other life - this is how my Quirk is activated. Or at least one of my Quirks.

I searched and found them, all of the ones in my legs and lower body...and I activated my Quirk around them as I pressed off the ground.

My legs blurred, followed by me as I was shot forward with an unnatural amount of force.

My eyes went into overdrive trying to keep up with the rapidly moving surroundings, but they managed - maybe they'd changed to be able to keep up with my speed? Some Quirks that affect speed do that, after all. Yet distractions weren't allow right now and I brought my back leg forward as my leading one made contact with the ground. Incredible force traveled through my leg and I moved it quicker than I thought possible as I threw myself forward once again.

I wasn't just strong. I was really bloody quick as well, it would seem.

Within a few seconds, I was on the other side of the room, over 100m away from my starting place. But I had one problem:

...I didn't know how to stop.

A few feet away from the wall I made a leap of faith, choosing to trust in my abilities, and jumped, lifting my feet off the ground as I bent myself backward and brought my feet upward so they would make contact with the wall first.

The soles of my now ruined shoes made contact with the wall less than a second later and I felt the reinforced metal wall stopping my momentum and my internal organs lurched.

To limit the damage, I went with the momentum and lowered myself to the wall in a sort of squat, as the force in my body drained into the wall. And apart from feeling a bit of pressure and overall uncomfortable-ness, I was fine.

But I wasn't finished.

With the leftover force keeping me on the wall, I used my supercharged muscles and tendons, alongside my supercharged joints, and I pressed against the wall and threw myself back toward my granddad.

I went through the air like a missile, and when I got close enough, I brought my feet down onto the ground to stop myself. This time, however, I had more than enough space to slow down to a stop.

Skidding across the laminate flooring, I came to a stop in front of gramps.

...Well, I skid a bit passed him but he caught the back of my shirt and stopped me, so it's all fine.

In the end, gramps starting laughing about how his grandson was the next big thing, probably feeling immensely proud in himself. I let him have it and just went along with it.