Chapter 2 Why am I on Fire? by Yojimbra

In general, my life goal was pretty much just to not die, something that was pretty doable as a shut-in. However, given how my current occupation was that of a pro hero, that goal felt much more difficult to achieve. Especially as Endeavour, of all people. Underqualified was a great way to sum up how I was feeling.

I let out a low growl as I examined Endeavour's hero suit; he'd wear it under everything when he went out, a classic workaholic. Though that wasn't the whole truth, Enji thought of himself more as Endeavour than he did as Enji. But in a world where being a hero is a full time job, it probably wasn't uncommon. No doubt Toshinori thought of himself as All Might first and Toshinori second.

I placed the suit back with its counterparts and stared at them for a moment more. In theory, all the training that Endeavour did was still in my mind, ready to be recalled at a moment's notice. But his instincts weren't. And my instincts were roughly the equivalent of a peanut butter sandwich in a room filled with begging dogs.

"Do I own a single tie that doesn't have flames on them?" Each and every single one of my ties were some basic color with flames at the bottom. Even a white and black one I thought looked good turned out to to have a black base with a white flame. Where was the fun!? Screw it, there had to be a tie with pink on it. There wasn't.

Rei stood at the doorway as I finished the last few buttons of my more professional suit. Ideally I'd be able to show up in a set of basketball shorts and a T-shirt, but this wasn't just a casual meeting between friends.

"Is there something happening?" Rei asked, her hand barely touching the door frame.

"I have a meeting with All Might."

That made Rei's eyes go wide. She gripped the door a bit harder, her hands shaking as she bit her lip. She was afraid. I wasn't used to seeing people be afraid of me, especially someone sweet like Rei. I hated it. But that wasn't something that was going to be fixed overnight. Any nice gesture I did for her might be suspect of having ulterior motives. Besides, I still needed to figure out exactly what I was going to do.

"Would it be alright if I take the kids to see my mother tonight?" Rei barely managed to squeak out. Any previous time that Endeavour had met with All Might, he had come home angry. Angry enough to scare Rei.

I smiled at her, and for a moment, surprise replaced her fear. "If that's what you want, sure. I don't really know when I'll be back, so I was going to suggest you didn't have to cook for me. But going to see your mom sounds like a great idea."

Hopefully in the future when I surprised her, she'd be smiling.

Rei stopped shaking, her head tilted to the side for a moment as she looked rather confused, somehow I feel like this whole day had been more confusing for her than it had been for me. And I was the one that had woken up in a giant flaming asshole. Seriously, I went from never married to a wife and two kids faster than I could have in Vegas.

"I, we, yes. We will. You. Umm. Thank you." Rei shook her head and bowed again, her soft footsteps echoed through the hallway.

Now back to struggling with my arch nemesis, tying a tie.

I still needed to figure out what I was going to say, and what I was going to do. There were way too many moving parts for me to act, and even if I did, would I be able to do anything? Sure, I was Endeavour, but at the same time I wasn't. What could I even do today?

List of heroes, list of heroes.

Hawks was probably still in diapers. Or wait, wasn't he closer in age to Fuyumi or Touya? What even was his first name anyways? Should have paid more attention to him. Burnin was like, six or something, Miurko was about that age too. Eraserhead was probably being a problematic preteen somewhere in the world. Who else was there?

Gang-orca? He looked old but I honestly had no idea what his age was.

I miss the wiki so much right now.

Gran Torino might still be active, or more active at least. Should have asked All Might to drag him into this too. Hopefully Nezu and All Might would be able to help me with this.

Then there was Natsuo. He was close to twenty. That would mean Rei would likely have to be pregnant with him soon.

The man in the mirror looked back at me, short red hair, blue eyes, and one hell of a resting bitch face all stuffed into a well fitted suit and sealed with a badly tied tie. I looked like a mess. A bit of fire was on my head that was quickly snuffed out with a finger. A hot mess. Rolling my shoulders I set out for U.A.

"I'm sorry Natsuo, but I won't force myself on her." Though, his character probably would have been okay with that.

XXXX

Thanks to my experience with playing Persona 5's intro at least a dozen times, I had a decent idea of how the train system worked. I still almost got lost. Somehow, I managed to find my way to the U.A. gates.

The locked gates.

I moved over to the large keypad and scanner and stared at it for a moment. Endeavour had been here before; he was an alumni after all, having been from the first generation of heroes to graduate from the school after All Might's rise to fame. And what a rise to fame it was. The first year alone the crime rate dropped 10%.

"Look out below!" All Might's cheerful voice told me that I was standing in completely the wrong spot as he came shooting down from the sky and landed right next to me. Honestly, the fact that I was 6'5 now really didn't make All Might's towering height and mass any less impressive. With any luck, that would be All Might's form for a long, long time. The man greeted me with open arms and a wide smile. Much like myself, All Might had elected to wear a suit, the same one he later wore as a U.A. teacher, yellow pinstriped, and practically bursting from raw muscle. "Endeavour! It's good to see you, I see you're as punctual as ever!"

I nodded. What the hell was I even supposed to say? Hi, I'm not really Endeavour and god you're huge? "Thanks for agreeing to this."

"My pleasure! Though I must say that I am rather curious as to what this is all about." All Might opened the door with a few quick key presses. "But we can talk inside, shall we?"

The bustling school life of U.A. reminded me that here in Japan a six day school week was considered the norm. Did Touya lie to me? Why didn't Rei say anything? Why were there Saturday morning cartoons if there was Saturday school? Was that just for middle and highschool?

Anime did not prepare me for this.

"I must say the students here at U.A. are getting better every year." All Might walked with his shoulders back, as he exuded confidence. Just being next to him made me want to adjust my posture and stand tall beside him. "What do you say later we show them what some real pros can do?"

I blinked, and briefly saw death flashing before my eyes. All Might would completely destroy me, hell, half these students would destroy me. I didn't even know if I could fight, I could barely keep from setting myself on fire.

"Ahh, Enji, you uhh, have a bit of flame on the top of your uhh-" All Might held up his hand as though he was whispering, his blue eyes were focused on top of my head. He blinked and then reached out and I felt him snuff out a flame. "I'll just, take care of that for you."

"Ahh, sorry about that, and thanks." I probably shouldn't have said that let alone say it like that nor smiled, because it made All Might's hand drop and he looked at me oddly. "Right, well, Nezu is this way right?"

All Might stood and shook his head, "Not at all, he's on the top floor. He was getting ready to make himself known to the public, so I'm still a bit concerned as to how exactly you know of him."

"I'll explain what I can once we get somewhere private."

All Might's smile was replaced with a frown for just a moment. "Did something happen to you?"

I only nodded.

The way All Might treated me changed slightly, from an overeager puppy that just wanted to play, to how a concerned father might act. In a way, it was sweet. In others, it just made me miss home.

I had been to colleges before, sprawling campuses built on any flat spot they could find in the valleys and mountains of my home. But, none quite compared to U.A. The main building itself was like someone tried to turn an entire college into a skyscraper and succeeded, to say nothing of how absolutely small the ceilings made me feel. They had to be at least 20 feet high, maybe more.

The view from the top made me all the more impressed by U.A's general size, a campus so large that buses were often needed to go from one end to the other. It felt so fantastical, and amazing.

All Might lead me to a cozy looking meeting with a set of couches flanking a coffee table. Nezu stood on the table, handling a large―comparatively―tea pot with both hands as he poured a wonderful brew that had a bit of a crisp spicy niceness to it. Though, seeing the equivalent of a stuffed animal pouring tea was a bit on the odd side.

"Hello, Nezu," I bowed politely as I entered, staring at the creature perhaps a bit more intently than I should have. In person, Nezu was a lot less whole than he normally appeared. There were patches in his fur that were thin enough for his spotted skin to be seen underneath. That, or this Nezu had yet to fully recover from his past.

Nezu placed the pot down carefully, before wiping his hands off on a cloth and looking up at me. He placed both hands behind his back, the suit he was wearing was well fitted, though the boots he wore reminded me of Izuku's gigantic red pair. "I was reluctant to agree to this meeting, but Toshinori claimed you could be trusted, so my question to you is how do you know me?"

"That," I began, "is a long story, and I do plan to explain everything to you. To both of you." I looked back to All Might and gave a half shrug half smile and gestured for the seats. "I'm going to need both of your help with this."

"I see." Nezu placed his paw over his mouth and then hopped from the table to the couch. "Well then, have a seat, and let's begin, shall we? I must say, I'm rather excited now that I've spoken to you. There must be so much on your mind for you to want to meet with all Might."

I took my seat opposite the two of them All Might towering over Nezu as the two took a sip of their tea so in sync that it might as well have been practiced. I took a sip and found that the crispness of the tea calmed me instantly.

With a long, steady breath I thought about how to say this. I had been thinking about it for the longest time, but no way seemed good. It felt like no matter how I put the words that it would constantly fall flat on its face and leave a sour taste in my mouth. Well, it wasn't like I ever planned any of my stories to start with, might as well just talk and see what happens.

One of the most important parts of telling a story was the Hook. The thing that grabs the reader, listener, or viewer and sucks them in. Fortunately, I had a lot of hooks up my sleeve and All Might and Nezu were looking like very eager fish.

"I'm going to start with this." I took a deep breath and felt my hands shake as I prepared for the truth. "I'm not the Endeavour you know. I'm not actually any Endeavour, really, I actually just woke up in his body this morning, I don't know how or even why, but the truth is that I'm not the man you know."

They were both silent for a moment. All Might shifted in his seat, glancing at me with concern while Nezu folded his hands in his lap.

"Then what happened to Endeavour?" All Might was the first to ask.

I shrugged, "I honestly don't know, I have his memories inside of me, and I can find his feelings in there, but as far as a persona there's only me in here." Felt good to use the word persona in a conversation not about the game. "But, that's not all. You see, I'm not just some random person from this world that switched bodies with Endeavour, or even someone that took him over."

Deep breath. Deep steady breath. It was time for the real wild part.

"In the world I'm from we don't have quirks, everyone is just a normal human." Mostly, "But, in my world, there's a Manga, one called My Hero Acadamia. It's set in this world, twenty years from now and it follows your successor, All Might."

"Successor?" Nezu questioned, looking up towards All Might.

The color drained from All Might and I saw the first hints of the skinny malnourished man he could end up becoming. "How much do you know?"

"About One for All?" I asked, watching his eyes go wider. His hands were balled into a fist, he was shaking. "Probably more than you."

"Excuse me, what exactly is One for All?" Nezu asked, raising his hand. "I feel like understanding that would help me believe this is not some elaborate hoax."

Now it was my turn to be surprised. Twenty years from now Nezu knew about One for All, he was one of the ones trying to get All Might to pass on the quirk to Mirio after all. I looked towards All Might, and extended a weak hand in apology. "Sorry, I thought he knew."

All Might let out a long sigh and relaxed. "It's alright, I'm sure if what you say is true, then he must eventually know. Though I find a lot of this hard to believe. Is there something more you can tell me?"

"Your name is Toshinori Yagi, you were born quirkless but still wanted to be a hero and thought that Japan needed someone strong enough to be a pillar of peace and justice." I took a deep breath and maintained eye contact. "You left an impression on your late master, Nana Shimura and she gave you One for All. Do I need to go on?"

All Might frowned. "This is not at all what I had in mind when you said you wanted a meeting"

Was All Might pouting?

"So, if I'm understanding this correctly." Nezu looked up towards All Might and gave him a speculative glance. "You possess a quirk that can be passed down from one person to another?"

"Yes, that's the gist of it, I can explain more later, but why don't you continue, uhh, I'm sorry what exactly should we call you"

Enjimbra?

"Just, call me Enji." It was close enough to my real name anyways, if I played with the letters a bit. And the sounds. Okay, so it had two similar letters but that was close enough. "It'll make things easier. Or Endeavour, it is who I am now, kinda."

"Well then Enji, it appears as though, you've gotten All Might to believe you." Nezu took a long sip of his tea finishing the drink with a content sigh. "And while that would be enough for me normally, I'm still a bit suspicious. You're claiming to have knowledge from twenty years in the future in the form of a manga you read. It seems a bit convenient, so what are your goals?"

"Long term? I don't really know." I shrugged showing both of my hands as I leaned forward onto my knees. "For my personal goals it's to make sure that the family I found myself in is happier than the one I know. But, beyond that, I don't know. That's why I came here, not only are you two of the smartest people I know, but you're also both firmly on the side of good. And if I'm wrong about trusting you, then I'm wrong about a lot of things."

"So, if you want to know what my goal for coming here is? It's to get your help. I'm not asking anything for what I know. I'm not even sure what I know will even be of any help right now, most of it is in 20 years from now, and things are already going to be different." I looked at my hand and stared at it for a moment. "I'm not Endeavour, I'm not a hero. I don't know if I could save the people he saved; I can barely go five minutes without setting myself on fire! So, that's my goal, my goal is to trust you two."

I looked at both of them and gave my best smile. "So please, help me."

All Might's grin stretched from ear to ear. "Fear not Enji! We can team up for a while and I can get you into heroic shape in no time flat! This will be great! The two of us teaming up! Can you imagine all the good we'll do?"

When I looked at Nezu, I made certain that I looked like the most pitiable person on the planet in hopes that he would save me. Part of me, a large large part of me, just didn't want to be a hero. That wasn't who I was as a person. I panic, and the idea of me being responsible for someone's life or death made me light headed.

"Perhaps." Nezu gave a sadistic smile. Right, he was sadistic. "But for now, Enji, please, tell us all you know."