Chapter 3

As it turned out, I was just in time for Izuku to begin second grade... and as an adopted child, I was enrolled right along with him. I was slowly starting to remember bits and pieces of what I knew of the world I had found myself in, as well as what I knew from before I got here. One thing that I immediately recalled was that Japan, at least in my original universe and time, had a not-unwarranted reputation for ethnocentrism and mild-to-moderate xenophobia; thankfully, this had mostly gone away in light of the fact that it's fairly difficult to worry about physical appearance when you regularly have brunch with a guy who has four arms or a bird's head. All that aside, I still didn't quite remember my original age; that, combined with the brain chemistry of my 8-year-old body, made it surprisingly easy to fall naturally into the role of a little kid, for better and for worse.

One of the perks of growing up again is that everything that isn't bad is automatically awesome and cool. Bonus points if it's something you've never seen before. Another is that whenever you're in "play" mode, you feel a sort of non-stop creative fire that lets you imagine entire worlds and adventures that an adult mind wouldn't be able to do anymore, and none of it has to even make a lick of sense; if I had to guess, that's the part people always think of when they talk about wanting to connect with their inner child. The next time you get that urge, do yourself a favor:

"Hey, look, it's quirkless' dumb foreigner friend!"

Punch yourself. Kids can be awful.

I had been running around the school playground imagining I was an astronaut on the back of a space dinosaur when I saw some kid walk up to me out of absolutely nowhere, giggling with the most obnoxious smirk on his face. Look up "extremely punchable" in the dictionary and you'd see this brat's picture.

"My name's Casey M... er, Kendall," I said, stumbling a bit on the name. "If you can't say it right, you might want to keep your mouth shut, otherwise people might notice how stupid you are."

Yeah, my wit wasn't at my best due to the whole "stuck in kid mode" thing. Thankfully, as far as it fell short of grown-up standards of insults it was still far enough above the second-grade level to thoroughly burn the little brat. Unfortunately, he recovered after a few seconds, and had a ready response.

"Ha! You were about to say 'Midoriya', weren't you? You think getting the mom of some quirkless loser gives you the right to be here? You really are a dumb foreigner!"

Okay, now you're pissing me off. Truth be told, I still wasn't comfortable using anything but my original last name; like I said, Japanese society had mostly moved past the lack of acceptance of foreigners—save for this little shit—but something about being a non-Japanese with a Japanese last name still felt too weird at the time. Besides, it had only been about a week since my adoption, and my real family's deaths were still on my mind.

"If you're done using the only insult you know, go away and leave me alone."

"Yeah! Leave my brother alone!"

I whipped around to see Izuku standing behind me, desperately trying not to look scared. I might have been reluctant to fully accept my new living situation, but Izuku practically embraced the idea that I was his brother the instant he saw me.

"Or what, quirkless? You and your friend gonna stop me? Bakugo's been going too easy on you. Maybe I oughtta teach you your place!"

With that, the kid picked up a rock in one hand that a kid his age would normally need two hands for—that must've been his quirk—and lobbed it straight at Izuku's head. Now, I may not have been comfortable calling him brother back yet, but I wasn't going to let him get hurt, either; unfortunately, my little legs didn't move as fast as they should've, and instead of pushing him out of the way I just ended up putting myself between him and the rock.

It struck me right on the jaw... only to drop straight down to the ground the instant it touched me. I didn't even feel a thing, save for a bizarre sensation of absorbing something.

The bully had an expression not unlike a horribly confused and not-terribly bright hog. "Huh? What happened?"

As the brat looked on in surprise, I felt an anger well up inside me at the attempted stoning—the strangeness of the situation temporarily forgotten—and charged straight at him, rearing back for a punch. The bully ducked at the last second, my fist hitting the brick wall behind him instead... which got a few surface cracks from the blow.

The brat ran away as I stared at my hands in shock; Izuku, on the other hand, practically teleported to my side, squee-ing over what I had just done and speaking at a mile a minute.

"WOW! Your quirk is cool! How's it work? Is it just strength and endurance, or is it something else? Can you do it whenever, or is it triggered? What's it called? Is it—"

The end-of-recess bell rang, cutting off his rapid-fire interrogation. My adult mind told me that this bore investigation... but that could wait until after class.

Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 1

Izuku was almost begging to add my quirk to his hero research journal, but I'm pretty curious as well, so I've decided to start my own. He knows a lot about quirks for someone who doesn't have one, and he's super-excited to help me figure out mine; we decided to start with just the basics today. Together, we grabbed a big rock just outside our apartment building and I tried punching it; the only thing that happened was that I hurt my hand. It's not bad, it's just a little sore, but that's just because I held back a bit. It's pretty obvious I don't just have regular super-strength, though. We sat a while trying to figure it out, but it started getting dark and we had to come in for dinner. Ms. Midoriya made rice with beef; I've never had it before, but it was really good. Tomorrow's Saturday, so maybe we can figure it out then?

Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 2

We kept trying to find out how to trigger my weird super-strength, but nothing happened until I remembered something; when that rock hit me, it fell to the ground in a weird way, and I felt like I sucked in something or absorbed something that made me feel stronger. I told Izuku to punch me; it took me a long time to get him to do it because he didn't want to hit me. When he finally did, his fist just stopped the instant it touched me, and I felt the same sensation. After that, I tried hitting the rock again; it didn't break or even crack a little bit, but I didn't hurt my hand as bad this time. I think we found something. We told Ms. Midoriya, and she said she'd take me to the doctor in a couple of days to see if they can figure out my quirk and give it a name or whatever, but I still want to know a little more first. Tomorrow, then.

Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 3

I think we're getting closer to figuring out my quirk; this time, we found another, smaller rock and I had Izuku throw it at me. I got a little bit of that weird feeling from it, just a tiny bit more than when Izuku punched me, but not as much as when that kid threw the big one at my head. I told him to throw it again, but this time it went a little wide; out of pure reflex, I reached out to catch it, only for my hand to brush against it. The moment I touched it, the rock fell straight down and I felt that feeling again. I could feel something building up in me, but just to be sure I had Izuku punch me again—this time, as hard as he could—and when I punched the big rock, it finally cracked a bit. Apparently, I get stronger when I get hit or when I touch something that's moving; the thing we're missing is why the stuff that hits me or that I touch stops in such a weird way when I make contact. I think I know what it is that I'm absorbing to make that happen, but I can't remember the word for it; it's one of those things that I used to know but forgot. It's on the tip of my tongue, though, so I'll probably remember it soon.

Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 4

Ms. Midoriya took us several places; first, we went to a special doctor who analyzes quirks, and I showed him this journal; it sort of irritated me when he told me what a good job I did writing this journal (in the same tone of voice that an adult would say, "what a smart little boy!"), but thankfully it made his analysis go by quicker. Once that was done, we went to a government building to register my quirk and get a legal name for it. I'm gonna be honest, I'm actually sort of excited to have it on paper, so just for the heck of it I'm gonna write it here, too:

Quirk: Kinesis

Can absorb kinetic energy upon physical contact, either by being struck or by touching a moving object; can then release kinetic energy by adding it to physical attacks

Pretty basic, and Izuku and I intend to do some more research on it as time goes by, but for now it feels good to have an official name for it. 'Kinesis'... I like it. Izuku thinks we ought to try to become pro heroes together; I recalled comics from my old world like Batman where the hero didn't have any superpowers and yet managed to kick butt, so I've encouraged him that even a quirkless person could definitely be a pro hero. I guess we'll find out one day...

Inko was doing some late-night TV watching when she heard screaming and shouting from Casey's room; Nakagai had told her he was traumatized and that this might happen, but the maternal panic still kicked in enough that she ran as fast as possible to his room. Izuku was up as well, worried about his adoptive brother, and that worry only increased at the sight that greeted them upon opening the door:

Casey was thrashing about in his sleep, shouting in frightened English about his parents, tears flowing from his eyes; in what seemed like the space of a heartbeat, she turned on the lights and rushed over to the bed, sitting on it and holding the boy in a tight hug.

"Shh... it's okay, Casey. You're safe, it was just a dream, you're safe... I've got you, it's okay..."

It took some time for the poor child to stop shaking. Her heart nearly broke for him when he looked up at her, tears still in his eyes.

"Th-thank you M... Ms. Midoriya. I th-think I'm okay now..."

She put a smile on to cover her sadness at the way he addressed her. Koji did warn me about that too, though, she reassured herself; he just isn't ready to call me that. I'll give it time...

"Are you sure, honey? I can get you some juice or milk if you need something to help you sleep better..."

The boy shook his head, clearly uncomfortable with the thought of needing help to sleep.

"No, I'm fine now. I can get back to sleep on my own..."

Inko couldn't help but chuckle. "Alright, alright. Just don't be afraid to come to me if you ever need anything, alright? This is your home, just like it is Izuku's. For now, just get your sleep; you still have school in the morning."

After Izuku stopped crying over his brother, she ushered the former back to bed as well. She turned the TV off and pulled a chair over near the boys' rooms, and made sure to stay there for a while longer just to be safe.

We're almost done with the prologue; the next chapter will finish off the early childhood and initiate a timeskip to Junior High, then the chapter after that will be the first section of the canon story. Nearly all the SI's memories will have returned by that point, so don't worry about him being too clueless to try and mess with canon as SI stories do. See you then!