Vast, concentrated and vibrant. The crowds stood in awe watching the debut of a pro hero.
A beast like villain that is a mix of a bear and a lion throw a claw forward hoping to tear through the hero.
A swift dodge made the villains strike useless, the hero ducked through and punched the villain square in the jaw.
After such a grand preformance you'd expect the hero to follow through with a barrage of punches, but, he simply walked away.
"Sir afterimage! Behind you!"
"Finish him when you have the chance!"
The crowd roared, worried for the hero. The villain is clearly not down so why walk away?
As the villain was about to claw the hero, inches away from his face.
*BOOM
Another force landed on the villains chest, and for the next 8 seconds 4 other hits arrived with intervals of 2 seconds each.
"Don't worry guys! He's just too slow for me!" Shrugged the prideful hero.
Quirk- delayed delivery: A certain action is replicated between 2-5 times over the span of 2-10 seconds. The delivery will be done the same way with nothing to block it, whether a stab or a gunshot.
"Wow, his quirk must he powerful for him to be this confident!"
"Don't fall for it, this wasn't for us, he did it for fame!" A person in the crowd roared. Everyones attention slowly shifted to him, "true heros are like All might! Or like Izuku midoriya, self sacrifice for the sake of the people and efforts to make us feel safe, not just flaunting your quirk while making the people worried!" The chubby man yelled, his face turning a hue of red.
"Fame?" Questioned the hero, "hell yeah I am, Your lives aren't gonna feed me unless I'm famous, if you wanna keep complaining about me being awesome and saving you then next time fight the villain yourself," shrugged the hero.
"You're trained to do this! Our taxes pay you! The least you can do is be righteous," huffed the chubby man.
"Awww are you saying this because you're quirkless? The hero leaned in, looking down on the guy.
The man started sweating, "don't look down on the quirkless! The greatest heros of the past eras were all quirkless!" He tried explaining, attempting to prevent the disgusted and pitying looks of the crowd.
—-
A certain young man picked up a newspaper on the train, headline reading "should the hero commission change the rankings from fame oriented?" While ranting about the hero afterimage.
He was currently on his way to the quirk evaluation centre, a new system was developed to evaluate the potency of your quirk, from 0% to 100%. In history there has only been a single 100%, that was the progenitor of quirks himself, All for one.
A new classification of quirkless was also listed, anything below 20% is marked as quirkless as the quirks are so weak and unimportant that the person might aswell be quirkless.
This caused massive waves and faced a lot of backlash, but due to heavy enforcement by the government and the HPSC it was gradually accepted.
Now under each forum and application there is the missing bar of quirk details, rather they ask about the level.
With the advancement of the discovery of the quirk gene, research about quirk supressents for villains and those who are too weak to handle their quirk is on full speed, however the opposite also exists.
Quirk enhancements have been around since the All might days, but extreme methods and unorthodox methods have lead the world to realize there can exist a permanent quirk enhancement by a solid 10%, this was the peak the HPSC could create without any side effects.
Other shady dealers have managed to reach 19% with a side effects list that could block the sun, but when dealing with human greed, the side effects become the least of their worries.
Every country and institution is currently racing to reach that 11% enhancement without effects and the 20% enhancement, the last research institute to pave a new path into the perfectly healthy double digits, was UA university.
"Name please?" Asked the receptionist, her fingers hovering over the keyboard in anticipation.
"Hozumi Ritsuto." An average height boy, or now man? Stood, his black hair cascading down his face, thick lips and pale skin the only thing still able to be seen on his face. His frame was quite tiny, seemingly made of just bones and skin. His voice was course and monotone, the lack of sleep catching up to him.
"Thank you…" she began typing, "and quirk name?" Her face stayed fixed on her screen, only her eyes shifted upwards looking past her eyebrows.
"Oathmaker," He muttered, scratching his head, his plane all black outfit creasing around the edges.
"Found you, you can go ahead and sit down, just wait for your name to be called up," she let him know before giving him a leaflet.
He slowly stepped, dragging his feet into the seating area. "Sigh* It just had to be packed," he rolled his eyes, looking around for any empty seats before he spotted someone familiar.
"OH MY GOD, IS THAT RITSUTO!" Roared a spiky haired blonde kid, all the waiting area went silent, including the receptionist, glaring at him. "Sorry!" He bowed.
The lively activity of the waiting area resumed.
'Now that he called my name and recognised me I should probably sit next to him, thanks to his dumb screaming the seats around him emptied up' Hozumi contemplated before finally beginning his march.
"It's such a coincidence that we're here on the same day!" The blonde haired kid practically bounced in his seat.
"1.) I never gave you permission to call me by my first name. 2.) It isn't a coincidence since we need the quirk level for university applications. 3.) Please don't be loud again." Hozumi muttered, rubbing his temple.
"Oh come on buddy! We knew each other since kindergarten! We're besties for resties so I don't need permission," he slapped, Hozumi's back repeatedly before wrapping his arm around his neck pulling him for a side hug. Hozumi didn't resist, his body being ragdolled around. "And!" His voiced peaked, in Hozumi's ear. "You're applying to UA too right?" He shook Hozumi by the shoulders repeatedly.
Hozumi rubbed his ears, making sure they still work, "Me? Friends with Bakugo kaen? Pfft, acquaintances at best," Hozumi muttered under his breath. "What would I apply to UA? I don't want to be a hero," answered Hozumi.
"I'll act like I didn't hear that…" Kaen squinted his eyes at Hozumi. "and was't our dream as children was to be the top heros?" Kaen had his finger to his chin, recalling passed memories.
"That was the past, being a hero was purely to uphold justice, but I can uphold justice as a lawyer," Explained hozumi.
"How about a bet!"
"No."
"Pleaseeeee!!"
"No."
"Pleaseeeeeeeeeeee!!"
"Say it, I'll agree depending on what it is," Hozumi kept looking at the door, his arms crossed, he only side glanced Kaen occasionally inbetween sentences.
"If you're quirk level is higher than mine, a natural born awesome amazing charming hero, then you're clearly meant to be a hero!" He explained, with each word describing himself, he hit a different flexing pose.
"You aren't anything you described," Hozumi retorted his face neutral.
"That's not the point!" Kaen complained, lightly jabbing Hozumi's shoulder. "So do you accept it?" Kaen lean extra close, only an inch away from the side of Hozumi's face.
"I'll accept it if you back away,"
Kaen instantly retracted, if Hozumi didn't know him, he would've thought the shine of his teeth was his level 10 quirk.
"Excuse me, Bakugo Kaen, who is Bakugo Kaen!" The doctor called out, scanning the room, a notepad in one hand while the other hand flicked it to a consistent rthym with a pencil.
"Yes! Me!" Kaen jumped up, speed walking to the door behind the doctor.
Just before he walked into the back , he looked back, waving bye at Hozumi.
"Wait, Bakugo as in?"
"No way,"
"Didn't think such a hotshot lived around here,"
"So that's the grandchild of the infamous Great explosion murder god,"
'I never thought Kaen would be this famous, I knew his grandfather was famous in the past generations but how amazing must he have been to be remembered to this extent,' Hozumi thought to himself. 'He must have been righteous, fair, patient, and had qualities of a true hero, he's probably way calmer than Kaen and also way more calculating."
Hozumi stayed silent for the rest of the wait, he'd usually only speak to others when Kaen forced him into the interaction.
He attempted to keep his thoughts away from other conversations but it seemed everyone was muttering the same thing.
"Please be above 20,"
"Even 20.0 is fine"
"I need it to he above 45 for my university admission!"
"Mom I don't feel like going through with it… Yes I know I won't get a job if I don't!"
'I never really thought to myself before, what if I'm quirkless. I lived my whole life believing I'm at least 60% seeing how complex my quirk is, but what if it's delusion,'
Kaen slowly walked out the door, his expression a mix of disappointment and shock.
'Oh no did he do terrible? What did he get 30? 35?' Hozumi's mind raced, 'does this mean I have to be a hero? Oh no,'
As soon as Kaen got within reasonable talking distance Hozumi asked, "What did you get.." his voice had a tiny bit of hope in it.
"Only 79%! I was so close to level 8 man!" Kaen complained.
The waiting room explodes in shock.
"Level 7?!!!"
"He's at 79??? Thats insane!"
"Some heros are only level 4-5!"
"I really hate this system man, why don't they just round the percentage," complained Kaen.
"Apparently the difference between levels is like a quadratic graph," Hozumi used both his index fingers to draw the shape of a smile in the air. "4.5 to 6.5 are practically equal with very small differences, how ever the more you move the bigger the difference so there is probably a considerable difference between you and a person is 80% or 81%, and there is an even bigger gap between 89% and 90%," he explained.
"Yea yea I understand, just say I'm not cut out for it," Kaen rolled his eyes.
"Thats not what i sa-"
"I know! I was joking," Kaen jabbed Hozumi's shoulder.
"Is there a Hozumi Ritsuto, a Hozumi Ritsuto," called out the doctor, tapping his notepad repeatedly.
"Here," Hozumi muttered before beginning to walk. "I guess You're the only one going to UA," he said to Kaen.
"Maybe I am," Kaen sighed.
Long corridors with bright lights illuminating every corner, light so bright it causes a headache.
The doctor took a turn into a room, Hozumi followed silently, the doctor sat on his chair. Years of stress and overworking seemed to dissipate from the mans shoulders. "So, first I'll extract blood from you, then we can actually test your strength if you want that too, but the quirk level only needs blood."
"I don't mind testing my strength," Hozumi replied.
"So tell us the type of thing you want to measure, like for example, if you had a water quirk, would you want to test amount produced, pressure, purity." The explained the doctor, getting his needle ready.
"I want to measure, the force of a punch," muttered Hozumi, look at his fist before clenching it.
"Physical quirks are really common, I feel bad for you, most work environments won't want that." The doctor muttered, putting Hozumi's blood in a flask before sending it to the lab.
"Yea you're right," Hozumi looked down at his hands, his quirk is a hassle to explain, Kaen only knew about it in full due to his constant questioning.
"Follow me," the doctor set up all his papers, before getting up and marching down the same corridor into a room with a bunch of moniters and machines.
Hozumi stared at the punching bag in the room, walking up towards it. "When ever you're ready," spoke the doctor through an intercom while he stood behind protective glass.
Hozumi placed his hand on his chest, "Let this law be absolute! " he roared, "from here on, no one can use their quirk in or leave this a 30 metre radius!" His voice rung out across the room.
The doctor thought he was doing theatrics, trying to makena simple strength quirk seem cooler than it is.
Hozumi slowly expanded, going from a 5'7 skinny boy to a 6'5 very muscular man, his shirt resisted tearing which explained his choice of very baggy clothes.
He pulled back his hand, before slamming it forward, to the doctor his hand was a blur, even when slowed down by cameras.
*BOOM
The punching bag was missing, and the ground beneath and around it was all caved in.
"Uhhh… 450,000N" spoke the doctor over the intercom. "Let me just chec-"
"I suggest you don't use your quirk doctor, It will be way more of a hassle, let me just…" Hozumi reached into his pocket and took a pill.
"Just give it 5 seconds," he rapidly shrunk to his original size. "Now," he looked at the doctor, "what is my quirk level so I can go,"
"That's what I wanted to speak to you about, we ran it twice just to make sure, and your level is 85%…" the doctor muttered his hands shaking while holding the verification paper.
"Oh…" Hozumi paused.
—-
"WE'RE GOING TO UA!!!!" Roared Kaen, his arm around Hizumi's neck, jumping around.
'Maybe I'll still be able to deliver justice as a hero, Maybe even be a lawyer through UA as they have a very powerful reputation and education system,' contemplated Hozumi.
"So you used a weight 3 in your evaluation? You really wanted to show off!" Joked Kaen, rubber the button of his nose.
"I Thought it would be the last time, I could use my quirk," Answered Hozumi.
"You know everyone uses their quirk, right? Stop worrying about the law so much," Kaen had his hands behind his head, he took a couple steps forward before realizing Hozumi stopped walking.
He turne around to see Hozumi glaring at him, fists clenched. "Sigh* sorry I should've known you'd hold the law dear to you." Kaen bowed down slightly.
"…"
"…"
They walked for a bit longer, Kaen silent as a show of apology and Hozumi silent due to his character ."Well then see you at UA," said Hozumi, walking on the left path.
"Yea, see ya!" Exclaimed Kaen, walking down the right path.
As soon as they got far enough to be beyond eyeshot, Kaens teeth and fists clenched, his breath heavy and unstable.
He slowly looked at his verification paper again and again and again and again, the number 79 a number most would die and kill for, being a symbol of torment for him.