Interlude 1

|The next day…|…

It was a good day for Little John's grocery store. 

Clients were coming in and out much more than usual, and while the owner, John—a foreign man who migrated to Japan to support his son's career as a hero from up close—, didn't mind getting a peaceful day with few clients, seeing his little business prosper still brought a smile to him.

After all, the more people that bought at his grocery store, the more that he could be able to help his son.

The poor lad had failed to get into UA, and as a result, had to get into a much less impressive hero school. So, John wanted to show his son that, even if he hadn't managed to get into his dream school, his father would be there for him. Be it economically, or emotionally.

-Cling, cling-

Unfortunately, the world wasn't a fair place where happy endings were the norm for everyone.

Suddenly, while John was checking out his phone as he waited for the next customer to appear, the doorbell sounded, and a figure dressed in black entered the store.

Realizing that he had work to do, John put his phone down and shouted with a gentle smile at the newcomer. "Welcome!"

However, the only answer he received was a hand with a huge and gruesome hole in the middle of its palm pointed at him.

"This is a robbery old man, give me everything you have if you don't want a hole to be blasted into your face!"

When he realized what was going on, panic struck John. While he had been one of the many lucky ones born with a Quirk, unfortunately, his wasn't groundbreaking or too powerful, as it only allowed him to nurture and fix the imperfections of plants by touching them.

Thus, when it came to defending himself, he was just as harmless as any other normal person.

"Y—yes!"

So, seeing his life at stake at the moment, he moved in a hurry and tried his best to open the cash register to give the man what he wanted.

Unfortunately, his sudden and hurried actions seemed to be taken in the wrong way by the thief, who believed he was grabbing a weapon, or calling the police.

"You, what are you trying to do?! Nevermind, I'll get the money myself!" And, without thinking it for a moment, he pointed at the man's head.

-Phew!-

The next second, a very intense but small laser shot from the hole in his hand.

"Uwah!" Fortunately for John, when he saw the man about to shoot him, he rapidly ducked away. Dodging the laser by just a few centimeters, which blasted a hole through a watermelon at the back of the store once it hit.

Sadly, that was as far as John's luck got, since immediately after, the thief walked up to him and lifted him by the collar. Thus, immobilizing him, and giving him no chance to dodge anymore.

When he had John at point blank, he smirked in delight and placed his hand on John's face. "Let's see how you dodge this"

Then, the hole in his hand began glowing, as if it was about to shoot.

When he saw that, John's life passed by his eyes.

His childhood when he was bullied in school for his lame Quirk, his teenage years when he began thinking of what to do with that stupid life of his, and lastly, his adult years when he met the love of his life and had a son, only to later lose her to a disaster that struck their neighborhood, and leaving him to take care of their son alone.

He had lived a common life, he didn't know if good or bad, but it was one he cherished deeply now that he was reliving it.

And, as his love for his life and those who still depended on him dawned on his mind, John began struggling with the man's grip, trying to punch him or kick him.

Unfortunately, in the short time frame he had before the man shot, it was not possible to dodge the incoming laser.

And, seeing his death incoming, John closed his eyes and gave up. 'I'm sorry, John Jr… It seems like this is as far as I get. I hope you become a hero like you wanted, and that my death won't weigh too much on—'

Unfortunately, he never got to finish his final words, since out of nowhere, the startling noise of glass shattering reached his ears and snapped him out of his trance, along with the thief as well.

And, unfortunately for the evildoer, his slow reflexes were the cause of his downfall.

By the time the thief turned around, the only thing he was able to see before falling unconscious was a boot sole about to hit his face.

-Thud!-

-Crash!-

After that, his body was sent flying across the store and he crashed with a bunch of cabbages on a corner, causing quite a mess upon landing.

"...?!" When John snapped out of his daze and realized what had happened, he gasped quite profoundly as relief started filling every part of his body when the feeling of finally being safe began sinking in. Almost falling on his knees even.

However, when the realization that someone had saved him struck him, he quickly stood up and turned to look towards the mysterious person who had saved him.

When he saw him, however, his eyes couldn't help but widen.

There, standing calmly in what seemed to be a blue tracksuit, a tall black-haired man with no particular distinguishable features aside from his brown eyes, could be seen looking at the fallen thief with an annoyed expression on his face.

"Why are you even robbing a grocery store, crazy bastard…" The man scoffed, before turning to look towards John and scratching the back of his head as he apologized. "Sorry about the window, I just thought that entering through the door like normal would alert the guy" The man pointed at the fallen thief.

John simply nodded at the man's words, muttering, "Don't worry about it…" as he stared dazed at the man who had saved his life.

To his surprise, though, the man then looked down at his products and began massaging his chin in thought.

"Well, since I'm at it… Can you give me ten carrots and four lemons? I think they will do for a nice salad today"

"What?" John asked, not quite getting what was happening.

The man pointed below the counter, where boxes containing different kinds of vegetables and fruits could be seen. "This is a grocery store, right?" He asked, looking at John with a confused expression.

When he heard that, John's brain finally stopped spacing out, and he nodded vigorously. "Oh, yes…!"

Then, John knelt down and picked up what the man had asked for.

Once John was done and handed him the two bags with carrots and lemons respectively, the unknown man took out his wallet and was about to pull out some bills from there. However, John stopped him before he could.

"Wait, sir, please take these as a gift! It may not be much but given that you just saved my life, it's the least I can do for you!" John pushed the bags into the man's arms, not taking a no for an answer.

And, as the man got handed the two bags without being able to refuse them, he glared back and forth between these and John, before he let out a sigh and nodded in gratitude. "Thanks"

After that, he walked out of the store and left without saying anything else. Leaving John alone, who simply kept staring at the door for a while after the man left.

"I forgot to ask his name"

…

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|Suzaku's apartment, half an hour or so later…|

…

At that moment, everything was in silence, except the fridge's sound which interrupted the stillness of the room every now and then. Not a single soul was in sight, and Suzaku, the owner of the apartment, was nowhere to be seen. 

Had it not been for the still-hot and smoking boiler in the kitchen, indicating that someone had been here not long ago, it would have seemed like Suzaku had been long gone from there.

"Ugh…"

However, the silence and desolation of the apartment were suddenly cut off when, out of nowhere, in the middle of the bathroom a person suddenly emerged from the floor, and pushed himself up from the solid material easily as if he was simply getting out of a pool. Similar to how a certain blond young hero with the ability to phase through everything would look after walking out from the ground.

"So much for a simple trip to buy food" As he got out of the floor, the person muttered while he shook his head with an annoyed expression on his face. It was the same man who saved John earlier.

He cracked his neck, looking at the two bags full of veggies that he was carrying with a raised eyebrow. "But well, at least I got things for free" Shrugging after that, and leaving the two bags on a table.

Once he did that, the man walked to the bathroom and began cleaning his hands.

When he was done, he picked up a towel and was about to dry his hands with it. However, his eyes coincidentally met with his reflection in the bathroom mirror as he was about to do it.

"Ah, I forgot about undoing this" When he saw himself there, he let out a small chuckle as if he had seen something funny, only for his eyes to close not long after.

Then, he was suddenly enveloped in a red egg-like cocoon, which opened after a few seconds and revealed from inside it the juvenile figure of Suzaku with his little impostor hanging out in the open.

"Being able to change my appearance to my liking is pretty good, I admit… But it would be much better if I didn't have to go around technically naked while transformed…" He let out a sigh as he glanced down with a frown, before walking back to his room and putting on some clothes that he had left spread on the floor.

After he did that, he threw himself on his bed and, seeing that he had done enough for the day with that little outing to buy food among other things, he decided to watch some videos on Quirktok.

Two days had passed since Vlad King had announced that the Sports Festival would be in two weeks more, and right now, Suzaku was enjoying his weekend spending the day in bed and being incredibly lazy while he still could.

His teacher had told them to train, but Suzaku preferred to stay in bed.

He was already the strongest in the universe, why would he need to train?

To his annoyance, however, an hour or so ago, when he had been a tad hungry and decided to prepare himself a good salad to snack on, he discovered that he was out of lemons and… well, everything else.

The only thing he had left was some sugar, a box of fried chicken he had left to eat for another day, and… A piece of halfway-eaten bread, which by the way, was already hard like iron and had some moss on it.

He had forgotten how annoying it was to keep track of the food when you live alone.

Thus, after cursing at his carelessness, he decided to go out and restock his fridge with more things to eat.

However, since today was Saturday, and therefore weekend, Suzaku was in battery-saving mode, which, coupled with the fact that the supermarket was a bit far from his apartment, made Suzaku decide to just teleport close to there out of laziness.

And yes, you heard well. Teleport.

Or well, in this case, it technically wasn't teleportation per se. If there was a term that explained it better, it would be… "Venting"

Like the impostor in the game, who could jump onto vents spread through the map and teleport between them as he pleased, Suzaku's ability was similar.

However, he, on the other hand, could create his own vents and place them on whatever surface he wanted… Though, not on walls or ceilings, just floor-type surfaces.

The distance limit that could exist between two vents before Suzaku could no longer teleport between them was, according to his calculations using Quirkgle Maps, around 500 meters, or one-third of a mile.

It wasn't a crazily powerful ability, but it was very convenient in the day-to-day. Plus, if he used it cleverly, it also worked wonders in combat.

However, its use in that aspect was a bit more complex, and it often made Suzaku dizzy when he tried it out in training.

Thankfully for his head, though, so far, the only combat in which he had gotten the chance to use it was on his killing spree from a few days ago, during which, along with his other Sus power, invisibility, he had made sure to make his location confusing as hell for that bunch of kidnappers.

And yes, he could also become invisible. That was another of the skills that came with the Impostor ability pack.

Which meant that he could teleport, shapeshift, kill, and become invisible. 

At this point, Suzaku was wondering why he wasn't working as an assassin rather than a hero.

'Well, being a hero makes more money… If you're not fodder, of course...' He caressed his chin thoughtfully.

Plus, it was better for his already twisted mind to work saving others instead of killing others. Being someone whose body count was already in the hundreds already gave him enough trouble when trying to sleep at night.

But eh, who cares about those matters for sissies.

Back to the matter of his venting ability, he had to say that it still needed some improvement here and there in its use.

After all, as practical as it was for traveling large distances in small amounts of time and for confusing his enemies, it was also incredibly disorienting for him.

He had to be aware of both where to put the vents and the surroundings of wherever he would teleport to.

Walls, stairs, unevenness in the terrain, he had to be prepared and remember each of those possible annoyances when coming out from a vent.

He had learned that the hard way long ago… His nose paid the price for a week.

Another problem that this ability had was the limit of how many vents he could maintain at the same time.

At the moment, he had around 10 vents lying in different places around the city to make traveling much smoother, much like the one he had used to get close to the supermarket earlier.

That was his current limit, which, when considering that it used to be 5 vents max six years ago when he discovered these abilities, he thought was pretty good. After all, the more vents he had, the larger the distance he could travel using his teleportation would become, and therefore, the easier and more swift his travels around the city would become.

He dreamed of the day when traveling to the other side of the city would take him a minute or so at most.

For now, though, he had to conform with the small area of Tokyo that his vents encompassed.

That said, teleporting around the city was also not something he did that often. Just when he felt extremely lazy like today.

Why? Because if people saw him teleport, surely someone thirsting for a power like that would either try to employ him or take it for themselves.

And he wanted to avoid dealing with such annoyances.

'I mean, there has to be a Quirk that allows to steal other Quirks, right? It's like the most cliche thing ever' Suzaku thought, glaring at the ceiling and hoping to never meet them.

Those with stealer-type powers were always the most broken.

Back to the matter of him teleporting solely when feeling lazy, there was also the fact that, whenever he did it, he would also transform into someone else to avoid having that skill connected to him.

Just like he had done earlier, with that tall black-haired man appearance he took to go buy groceries.

That way, if he ever made a mistake and someone saw him teleporting—Even though he had placed the vents in empty places like abandoned buildings, or infrequented alleyways—If someone crazy got a word of it, they would start looking for the black-haired man instead of him.

By the way, he had gotten the man's face from a site on the internet that generated images of people who didn't truly exist. So no one was actually getting their identity stolen by him.

Anyway, that was the gist of those abilities, there were still a few more that had yet to be mentioned, but he didn't use them that often as they weren't especially useful in anything else other than combat… Or very specific situations.

Back to Suzaku, the lazy fucker was still lying on his bed, even though it was already time for lunch and his stomach was rumbling in discontent.

Not that Suzaku cared, though. Nobody was moving him away from his bed, not even his stomach.

"The brain rot is taking over this world as well…" As he lay calmly on his bed, Suzaku squinted his eyes at a weird video that appeared on his phone.

It was All Might's head coming out of a toilet, and singing some weird song called "Quirkibity Toilet".

"What the hell?" 

He quickly scrolled down, not wanting to see more of that weird video.

His eyes, however, gained an interested glow when he saw what the next video was about.

{"How do telescopes work? Stay and find out!"}

He raised an eyebrow and continued watching. After all, who knew when an apocalypse would strike, and cause the entire human race to lose all their accumulated knowledge?

Better be safe than sorry.

In summary, the video explained how the most basic of telescopes worked using convex lenses to converge the light they received into a much smaller point, which in turn, made the image visible through the other side of the telescope look enhanced. It made Suzaku a bit confused for a while, but a visual representation was shown in the video, so he eventually got the hang of it.

He wasn't a genius, but he wasn't a dumbass either.

…

Not entirely.

The video also explained how the more complex and modern telescopes worked. However, Suzaku's brain wasn't having any of that.

So, after having sated his curiosity, Suzaku scrolled down and continued watching some videos.

…

Until a minute or so later, when an idea popped up in his mind.

"Wait a second… Lenses?"

Suzaku touched his glasses, which by this point had already regenerated completely.

He altered their shape, making his plain and straight glasses suddenly start bulging slightly.

The image he was seeing suddenly got distorted, and although he got a bit dizzy for a second, he recovered fairly quickly and immediately continued with his experiment.

He bulged his glasses even more, causing him to look almost comical, like those cartoons where the eyes of the characters would bulge after seeing something pretty good.

When he did that, however, the image got inverted. 

"Huh?" When he saw that, Suzaku frowned. Not quite getting how that had happened.

Eventually, however, he remembered a small detail that the video had mentioned during its explanation and found the problem.

So, he altered the inner side of his glasses and voilà.

He now had Zoom incorporated into his glasses.

"Huh… Well, that would have been good to discover earlier…" He muttered, feeling a bit annoyed that, after almost 15 fucking years of living in this world with a superpower, only now had he discovered that he could do this with it.

Though, his regret did not last much, since soon the excitement of discovering a new feature for a Quirk he had thought had reached almost its fullest potential filled his body.

And soon enough, several ideas began filling his mind. 

After all, humanity had a long history with glass. There were bound to be multiple functionalities for his Quirk he could find if he investigated enough.

Maybe making his glasses act like armored glass, making them work like a microscope, and… Uh, well, that was as far as his ideas reached.

But he was sure he would come up with new ones if he investigated the topic further.

-Beep!-

Unfortunately, just as he was opening Quirkgle to look into the topic, a notification from Quirksapp popped up.

[Nerdy kid of the weird hair: Hey Suzaku, wanna go out and grab something to eat today?]

When he saw a message pop up at the upper part of his phone, Suzaku raised an eyebrow and opened the app.

And sure enough, it was Arata.

[You: Sure, I could use something to eat right now]

[You: Why now tho?]

It didn't take a second for a reply to come.

[Nerdy kid of the weird hair: I want to talk about something with you.]

[You: If it is about that girl you were checking out at the school, ask someone else]

[You: While my popularity with girls is nothing to scoff at, I do lack experience in the romantic aspect]

[Nerdy kid of the weird hair: It's not that. Did your teacher tell you guys about the upcoming Sports festival?]

[You: Ye]

[Nerdy kid of the weird hair: Well, what do you think about forming an alliance?]

[You: I'm listening]

…

-To be Continued…-

(A/N: Somehow my sleep schedule has become twisted beyond what's healthy. It's currently 8:23 AM, and no, I'm not waking up, if that's what you thought... I'm actually going to sleep just now)

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