A new beginning

Negary POV:

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A broken world, held upright by a select few, getting more crooked with each passing day. Slowly falling apart as the power of single individuals gets higher and higher. A world on the brink of anarchy, something very few of its inhabitants realized until it was far too late...

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'𝗜𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁...' I thought with a smile, keeping an eye on my surroundings even as most of my attention was directed inwards...

My soul was damaged beyond recognition... I could feel the fissures stretching like a spider's web across its surface, threatening to destroy it completely, causing incomprehensible pain throughout my being, relentlessly pushing for my submission...

'The dimensional barrier is always a bitch and a half to traverse... but I've had worse,' I thought as I continued to devour the last remains of the soul who had the misfortune of being nearest to me when I finally breached through.

Disregarding its desperate pleas for mercy and feeble attempts at defiance, I methodically dismantled it, studying its structure in the process and changing mine accordingly. This was a small trick I learned, and it always made the body adapt faster to its new owner... The interesting part was that the peculiar power residing within this vessel appeared to react in a strikingly analogous fashion...

Instantly, I felt my flight becoming smoother as the explosions erupting from the soles of my feet became more instinctual, for lack of a better word, demanding less focus to control and maintain.

And then, probably looking like a guided missile to any onlookers, I began hunting down any and all robots that I could see from above, uncaring about how many points they were worth. This was a good testing ground for my new flesh golem, after all...

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'After a thorough analysis on the subject (which lasted for about 9 minutes), I can say without any shred of doubt... that this is a weird fucking power,' I thought as I dived towards my next victim. A one-pointer robot who somehow ended up on a building's rooftop, busying itself by shooting rubber pallets towards the children below.

'With terrible accuracy, I might add.' I thought as my sweaty hand pierced through the green neck-like structure of the robot, too fast for it to react. Though they appeared formidable in their green, reinforced metal facade, beneath their exterior was a material that resembled cardboard.

'How else could simple children destroy them if that wasn't the case?'

The robot, true to its representation of a weak villain, only gave a half-hearted attempt at swatting me away using its shield-like hands, its baleful red eye flickering crazily.

It didn't matter, as the very next second I felt the laws of physics shifting around my hand, transforming the simple water secreted by this body's sudoriferous glands into something resembling nitroglycerin... and yet different.

*𝗕𝗢𝗢𝗠*

The robot shattered as explosions erupted from my fingertips, but there was no shockwave. The explosions were small, barely enough to put the robot out of commission. Waste not, want not after all. There was no need to be flashy; I knew exactly how much power to use to take care of these guys.

'This is the 37th I destroyed, after all...'

The robot slowly fell to pieces in front of me, and I tuned out the ruckus of the streets below. There seemed to be extremely few robots left either way, with the exam almost being finished. And so I focused my attention inwards, appraising the state of my soul once more.

While it displayed improvement, it was still notably weakened, as absorbing a lone soul was clearly insufficient for a complete recovery. Passing through a dimensional barrier was no joke, after all, and this world, just like the previous one, seemed to possess extremely low levels of magic, if any at all... this made the recovery process even more annoying than it usually was.

'How unexpected...' I pondered, gazing dispassionately towards the distance as a few faraway buildings collapsed like houses of cards, sending cascades of debris into the air.

'This is the world of My Hero Academia, after all... These ,,quirks,, can't possibly exist without some kind of supernatural explanation... but I can't detect any mana nor chi in the atmosphere or in other beings... which means that they are based on completely different laws...' My thoughts wandered as a small part of me observed what could only be described as a gigantic green toy soldier raising from the rubble, sending waves of panic through the crowd of children below. I didn't pay the thing any mind, focusing on this so-called ,,quirk,, residing in the body I permanently borrowed.

I could feel the power, connecting to my consciousness through the body's nervous system. I could feel it all throughout the body, mostly gathered around the sweat glands and the epidermis but also permeating the rest of the organs in smaller amounts...

I had a feeling it was supposed to be tethered to my soul as well, just like I felt it was for the previous owner, facilitating a seamless control interface... but that could wait for a bit... there was no need to hurry things, after all. 

'Slow and steady wins the race, more often than not...'

I had a lot of plans for this world, its low power ceiling giving me some leeway and allowing me to think about all kinds of wacky strategies...

'Of course, that's only if this isn't some kind of alternate universe full of gods ready to tear me apart, just like it was with th....'

Alas, my very important musings were interrupted by a flash of crimson light abruptly illuminating the space before me.

Refocusing on my body's vision (having let it be on stand-by for a bit as I fiddled with my soul), I saw a green metallic wall, adorned with spherical red lightbulbs forming a prominent X shape.

"What the hell?"

The baleful red lights kept intensifying, casting an eerie glow that seemed to seep through the metallic facade. It wasn't a pretty sight, but I met the zero pointer's gaze without flinching, naturally. Still, I could admit that I was surprised.

'When did these things get so stealthy?' I wondered, but as I glimpsed at the path of destruction it left in its wake, collapsed buildings lay strewn across ruined streets, I realized that it was probably I who got a bit too lost in my thoughts.

'The state of my soul seems to result in the body's increased sluggishness... I'll have to make this quick...'

I didn't spare even a glance at the rooftop I was standing on as it shattered, the whole block most likely destroyed by the robot's gargantuan hands. I maintained an upright stance, a sequence of small yet incessant explosions erupting from the soles of my feet. Each burst propelled me into the air, creating a rhythmic song that defied gravity.

I raised my hands towards the robot's ugly mug with deliberate slowness, as I felt my power thrumming. Despite our lack of a complete connection, I could tell It wasn't sentient, and I doubted it could even be considered alive, but it sure seemed to like explosions...

I myself didn't have any strong feelings about them...

*𝗕𝗢𝗢𝗠*

"But they clearly have a certain beauty..." I muttered as 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗹 broke loose...