If I were to rate the world I lived in, I'd give it a solid… four out of ten. It's boring — no mythical creatures, no magic, no heroes, just traffic lights, bills, and people pretending to smile. And to top it all off… Truck-kun.
Yeah. That damned cliché.
I was a normal 17-year-old Japanese orphan — average looks, average grades, and an average life that no one would remember. And right now? I was in a dark… room? My heart was racing, panic clawing at my throat.
Everything around me was void. No walls. No floor. Just endless black stretching in every direction. My breaths came out shaky, as if I were drowning in silence.
Then, out of nowhere, a faint glow began to bloom in front of me — soft, golden, and warm. It took shape, forming into a woman who radiated both grace and unimaginable power. Her presence felt like calm rain after centuries of drought.
"Well, let me first introduce myself," she said, placing a delicate hand over her chest. Her tone carried both serenity and command. "I am Izanami — Goddess of Creation and Death."
Her words seemed to vibrate through the air itself. Even the darkness responded, shimmering faintly around her. "But not everyone who dies gets to meet me," she continued, her eyes glimmering like sunlight through water. "Only those I deem worthy."
I just stood there, blinking. My brain stalled somewhere between holy crap, she's real, and why me?"It's… an honor to meet you," I managed to say, trying to sound composed. "I am—""I know," she interrupted softly, a knowing smile tugging at her lips.
I tried to hide my shock, but failed miserably. "Right… of course you do."" Please," she said, her tone light and amused. "Stay casual. You don't need to kneel or grovel."
"Okay then," I exhaled slowly. "If you don't mind me asking, why was I deemed worthy to be here?"
"Because of your soul."Her answer came so effortlessly that it almost sounded obvious.
"Yeah, my soul, right…" I nodded like an idiot. Her laugh was soft, melodic — almost teasing. "You misunderstand. Your soul is unique. You've endured more pain than most mortals ever could, yet it remains pure — untouched by bitterness. Like that of a newborn, perhaps even purer."
I scratched the back of my neck, feeling my face warm. "Well, I… I just try to help people. I've been through a lot, and I didn't want anyone else to feel that kind of pain."
"That," she said with a radiant smile, "is one of the reasons you were deemed worthy."
Something about the way she said it — that mix of affection and divinity — made me trust her instantly."Um… Goddess Izanami," I started hesitantly, "may I… make a request?"
Her eyes softened. "What is it?"
"You saw my death, right?" I asked, unsure how to phrase it."I did.""Then… you saw her. The woman who cried for me."
For a moment, Izanami just looked at me, and then her expression melted into something almost maternal. Her voice, when she spoke, could've thawed mountains. "You want to help her."
"Y-yes," I admitted, surprised at how easily she saw through me.
"Don't worry," she said gently, raising her hand. A golden spark danced between her fingers. "It shall be done."With a snap, the light rippled outward like waves on a still pond. For some reason, I knew she would keep her word. There was no doubt, no deceit — only warmth.
"So… what happens now?" I asked, uncertain.
"Well," she said, her tone softening as she sat gracefully at a low table that appeared from nowhere, "I will give you a choice. I can reincarnate you into another world… or let you pass peacefully into the afterlife."A porcelain cup of tea materialized in her hands, steam curling upward in gold-tinted wisps.
I took a moment to think. "I'll take that other chance," I said finally, my voice steady.
"Why so serious?" she asked, tilting her head with playful curiosity.
"Because… if the Goddess of Creation herself deems me worthy of another life, who am I to say no?" I replied. "Besides, I feel like the afterlife would be… boring."
Izanami smiled, clearly amused. "Very well. As part of this gift, I will grant you three wishes."
"Wait, really?" I blinked. "You're not… joking, right?"
"Would a goddess joke?" she teased, taking another sip of tea.
I hesitated for a moment before asking, "Can I have time to think about it?""Take as long as you want," she said kindly.
After what felt like minutes — or hours, time was weird here — I finally spoke. "I think I'm ready."
She set her cup down. "Then let's hear it."
"For my first wish," I said, "I'd like an enhanced mind — perfect memory, and the ability to interpret and learn faster than any normal person."
She nodded once. "It can be done."
"For my second wish… an immortal, ever-adapting body."
Her brow arched slightly. "Immortality is a double-edged sword. Are you sure you want to bear that weight? It can be both a blessing… and a curse."
"I'm sure," I said firmly. "I don't want to feel the sting of death again anytime soon."
"Very well," she said softly, her eyes gleaming. "It shall be granted."
She leaned forward slightly, intrigued. "And your final wish?"
I inhaled slowly, steadying myself. "I'd like… You are to be my last wish."
Her eyes widened briefly before she laughed — a melodic sound that echoed like chimes through the empty world. "Hehe~ bold. In all my time, no one has ever said that." She paused, her smile softening. "You know what? Why not?"
"Really? Just like that? No cosmic punishment or divine law-breaking?" I asked, half-joking, half-stunned.
She smirked. "Oh, I make the rules."
And for the first time since dying, I smiled — truly smiled.
The silver sigil under us pulsed once, twice, and then began to bloom outward like a flower of light. Izanami's hands moved in slow, graceful patterns — each gesture weaving threads of fate and flesh. The world around us narrowed to a glowing point and then stretched into a tunnel of warm, humming colors.
Her voice, younger now, whispered in my head. 'Relax. It's me, Izanami. I sent us into birth. We will be born today. I need to use this time to grow back my strength.'
'Twins?' I asked inwardly, half incredulous, half thrilled.
'Yes,' she replied, sounding smug and impossibly proud. 'But clearly, I will be older.'
A smile crept onto my face despite the whirlwind of fear and wonder. The idea of Izanami — the goddess who'd just granted me life again — being my sister was ridiculous and comforting all at once. 'What could make me safer than that?' I thought.
She answered with a teasing curl in her tone. 'You will be the safest being in this world.'
Light closed around me like a fist, then unspooled. For a heartbeat, I was weightless, like a note held in a chord. The air rushed; warmth pressed against me; the sound of distant crying threaded through the brightness. I clutched at the sensation of being remade, not just as a person, but—somehow—with fate braided around my spine.
Then, abruptly, sharp — a sharp hand slapped my newborn's bottom.
"Waaah! Waaah!"
The nurse's voice barked, amused and no-nonsense, as if slapping cheeks into existence were routine. Izanami's warning had prepared me; when the sting hit, I did exactly what she told me to do. My lungs filled and I let out a show-cry, full and theatrical, and by instinct the world responded: warm arms, gentle murmurs, the soft sheet of a hospital room.
A woman with shoulder-length brown hair and glasses appeared in my view as I opened my eyes, smiling professionally as she handed us over to another woman sitting up in a maternity bed. Her voice was the practical kind — efficient, happy, businesslike. "Here are your twins. Have you decided on their names?"
As the nurse placed us in the mother's arms, I felt something strange at the base of my spine: a soft, ticklish sensation that quickly unfurled into two plush, curved shapes. Two fluffy tails — black, glossy, and impossibly real — sprang from where my lower back met the mattress. My hand, only moments old, groped at them with astonished glee.
'Izanami, I have tails!' I shouted inside my head. Starry, absurd elation filled me.
'I know,' she answered, pride in every syllable. 'That is surprise number one.'
I glanced at the other baby — my sister, reborn. Her hair was black, cheeks rounder and softer than Izanami's remembered divinity, and where two tails sprouted from me, she boasted three. Even as a newborn, she radiated mischief. For a sliver of a second, my mind tried to process the impossible: the goddess of creation, reduced (for now) to a chubby-cheeked infant with an extra tail and an expression like a curious kitten.
Our mother cradled us with a glow that made the sterile lights feel warm. Her smile was gentle and immediate. "They are so cute," she breathed, drawing us both in close. Then she peered down at me, eyes bright. "I'll name you Kirigaya Hiro."
The name landed strangely familiar on my newborn tongue. Hiro. It felt like both an echo and a new anchor. My mind, still raw from the seam between lives, buzzed with recognition and the odd, ironic sting of coincidence.
"And I will name you Kirigaya Nozomi," she said to my sister, voice full of fondness. "I am Kirigaya Akihime, your mother."
We both reached out in that reflexive, infantile way, touching Akihime's cheeks with tiny fists. Her laugh fluttered, delighted and a little stunned — the kind of expression new parents wear when faced with the precise ridiculousness of fate.
The nurse excused herself to register us while Akihime played, and the room hummed with domestic warmth. I could feel Izanami's presence like a soft blanket against my mind, amused and oddly tired. 'Two surprises done,' she murmured. 'Wait till you see the next.'
-- Next day --
We left the hospital under a sky that seemed impossibly ordinary. My new life unrolled in a surreal laundry list: our father had passed years earlier; our mother had carried us under strange circumstances for five years; we were uncannily wealthy — filthy rich, actually — and most impossibly of all, we had been reincarnated into the world of MHA. That last detail, Izanami had saved for the end, like a finale: her final surprise.
We rode in a limo that smelled like leather and new car polish. The city zipped past in shapes I'd never learned before — odd people, fashions that leaned into the fantastic. One fellow looked like a walking spray can. I watched all of it with wide, newborn eyes and something like a thrill I hadn't known I'd missed.
The limo turned up the long drive to a mansion so enormous that the gate-to-door trip took a full minute. It glinted in the sun: stone and glass and carefully tended hedges. Dozens of staff moved like a tide around the place — maids, butlers, chefs — a small army of domestic precision.
Once Akihime and servants dispersed from our new room, Nozomi — Izanami reborn — levitated (because of course she did) and crawled into the crib beside mine. A tiny, infuriatingly smug smile tugged her lips.
"This place is nice and modest," she declared, stretching like some tiny monarch settling into a throne.
"How are you talking?" I whispered. My voice came out as coos from an infant's throat, but the conversation in my head was lucid because Izanami allowed it — a privilege and a consequence of our linked existence.
"We speak in a language only we can understand," she explained nonchalantly. "To everyone else, it will sound like baby noises." Her tail flicked once; even newborn, she was composed.
"Okay, so how much power do you have now?" I asked because curiosity is a bad habit, and I'd been granted the sort of knowledge that doesn't belong to babies.
"Not much," she said, opening and closing one tiny fist. "Maybe 0.0000002% of my original strength. I could carry this cradle at max, I suppose." Her tone was flippant, but the implication was clear and terrifying.
I grabbed her shoulder the way infants can grab with surprising force. "Remind me never to get on your bad side," I whispered into our mental channel.
She grinned, entirely too proud. "You can do the same thing. When I grow stronger, you grow stronger. Our souls are connected now." Then she went more serious, explaining the trade-off. "But the catch is — the stronger I become, the more slowly we recover. What might take decades for one person now takes centuries. We're linked. Your growth depends on mine and vice versa."
The idea sat on me like a strange responsibility. "I'm sorry," I said, embarrassed that my existence could slow her return to full power.
She nudged me playfully. "We've got forever, husband." The voice carried a teasing intimacy, and I blushed in that new, infantile way. She always had a talent for making cosmic things sound like gossip.
Four years later — or less than a blink, depending on how you counted time in a body that matured faster than usual — we were not babies anymore. We trained. We learned. Our days were packed with tutors, sparring partners, and books from a library that smelled like dust and authority. By the time we were four, we had already worn out our first instructor.
"Hit with all your strength," the instructor barked, practical and unflappable.
'Dude doesn't know what he's asking for,' I thought, grinning.
Nozomi darted first, faster than her tiny frame should allow, and her strike was parried. I used her like a springboard — a move we'd practiced until the timing was muscle memory — and rocketed toward the instructor like a living bullet. My attack displaced his balance, disarmed him, and left the training sword skittering across the ground.
"And that's checkmate," I said, slightly breathless and entirely smug.
The old man smiled, genuinely impressed despite himself. "Perfect teamwork, young ones. I feel like I have exhausted all I have to teach you." He picked up his wooden sword and, with a kind nod, announced, "In four — on your birthday — we'll hold a graduation. Don't be late." With that, he turned and left.
Nozomi and I exchanged a conspiratorial grin. "Race you to the hot spring," she challenged, already a blur.
We ran so fast the ground cracked in a spiderweb pattern behind us. She beat me to the spring by a second — because she was the Big Sister, she reminded me smugly. I scoffed, peeled off my clothes, and dived into the steaming water. The warmth chased away the day's fatigue like a promise.
We lounged there, breathing steam and conspiracy. I asked about the thing that nagged both of us. "Do you think we'll get quirks?"
Nozomi opened one eye and regarded me with solemn amusement. "What do you think?"
"I think it's unlikely," I said, more contemplative than I felt. "We came here with knowledge and magic already woven into us. A quirk manifests someone's strongest trait; ours are overwhelming as they are."
She shrugged the way only an ancient soul trapped in a child's body could shrug. "If anything, we might get so many things we'd be considered quirkless." Her grin returned. "Doesn't matter. We'll get into U.A. and crush everyone anyway."
My voice echoed through the baths: "You're too blunt for a goddess."
"No… former goddess," she corrected lightly. "I resigned the title when I came."
We laughed, trapped in the delicious contradiction of godhood and childhood, and for a brief moment, the world felt as small as a pocket and as vast as a promise.
A few days later, Nozomi stood in the arena and gave the instructor a display that embroidered speed and precision into an artwork. Her blade ignited the air with sheer force; her attack cleaved through his wooden sword and stopped inches from his head. The announcement — "Winner, Kirigaya Nozomi" — sounded less like shocking news and more like the expected outcome.
When my turn came, I placed one hand on the floor and channeled a pulse of mana into my feet. The world narrowed to focus and then exploded; I appeared at the instructor's throat in the blink of an eye. A single second. A breath. He chuckled, more astonished than beaten, and declared, "Winner, Kirigaya Hiro."
After the ceremony, Mother — Akihime — took our hands and led us back into the mansion. Joy warped her face into a thousand soft smiles. "For graduating, you deserve a reward. What do you want?"
Nozomi and I answered in perfect, terrible unison: "A lab."
Akihime stared for a beat, half surprised, half amused. "Did you have to say that together?"
"We can't help it," we said, smirking like mischief incarnate. She shook her head slowly, indulging us. "Fine. But I'm sending someone to watch you so you don't blow anything up."
We tackled her in a crushing hug, sent her tumbling backward in an explosion of childish affection. "Thanks, Mom," we chorused, and she laughed, breathless and indulgent. "Anything for my kittens," she murmured.
At the dining table that morning — which was more a feast than breakfast — Akihime teased, "Wanna check your quirks today? If we leave in an hour, we can be back by the time the lab is ready."
"I didn't mind," Nozomi shrugged. Mom seemed more excited than we were, which was an odd but lovely reversal. We ate, laughed, and then prepared.
A sleek black limo ferried us to the hospital. Renjiro Saito, our butler, was punctual and prim. He opened doors and smoothed cloth with the exaggerated care of someone who had been ordered to care for tiny gods.
"What kind of quirks do you expect?" Akihime asked, genuinely curious.
"Maybe my charming voice?" Nozomi suggested, jokingly.
"I don't expect anything," I said honestly. "We've already got strength and brains. If we got a quirk, we'd be too much."
Akihime pouted. "If you don't get quirks, I expect you both to be sad so I can baby you."
When the doctor returned, his face was solemn. "I'm sorry," he said. "Neither of you has quirks."
We performed the show we'd rehearsed in exactly point two seconds: choking back tears, trembling voices, that perfect, practiced heartbreak. Mother melted into a hug, worrying in the exact way she promised she would.
After the theatrics, we went home, and immediately dashed to the new lab, and looked at the two big chambers — each as large as a basketball court. Saito supervised and helped us check the equipment list. When Nozomi came from the other chamber, she asked, "What should we make first?"
I turned to her and smirked, feeling the old, easy thrill of scheming. "You know what I'm thinking."
Her tail flicked. "Do I?"
"Of course you do," I said. "We are building a testing center."
She smiled that confident, small-goddess smile. "Yes. Let's start there."