The Quirk Registry documentation sat on the kitchen.
Fern picked at her breakfast (rice, grilled fish, and miso soup) (super yummy!), while her parents discussed her future in excited tones. They thought she couldn't hear them from the living room. Well, they wrong.
"Energy Manipulation is rare," Kenji said, his voice carrying that particular enthusiasm quirk counselors got when discussing unusual abilities. "Especially suppression-type quirks. The agency that handles quirk analysis wants to schedule a full assessment."
"She's only four, dear," Yuki protested. "Can't it wait?"
"The earlier we understand her quirk's parameters, the better we can help her control it. You saw what happened at the park, she didn't even know what she was doing. What if next time she accidentally suppresses someone's vital quirk? A hero in the middle of a rescue? A doctor using their quirk for surgery?"
Fern's chopsticks paused halfway to her mouth.
He's not wrong, she admitted internally. Her magic (her "Quirk") operated on fundamentally different principles than the abilities of this world. She'd suppressed that bully's flames through a barrier that disrupted energy flow. If she'd pushed harder, she could have stopped his heart.
The realization sat like lead in her stomach.
In her old life, she'd spent decades mastering control. Magic was dangerous, and Frieren-sama had drilled into her the importance of precision, of never casting a spell without understanding every possible consequence.
But here? In this body? With magic that interacted unpredictably with quirks?
"Fern, sweetie?" Yuki appeared in the doorway, her smile warm but worried. "How are you feeling? After yesterday, I mean."
Fern looked at her mother, really looked at her. Yuki had laugh lines around her eyes, rough hands from years of nursing work, and a Quirk that let her sense body temperature. Nothing flashy. Nothing that would make her a hero. She's just a woman trying her best to raise a daughter.
She's not like Heiter, Fern thought. But she's kind. That counts for something.
"I'm fine," Fern said, pitching her voice to sound appropriately childlike. "The boys were being mean. I wanted them to stop."
"And that was very brave!" Yuki knelt beside her chair. "But you have to be careful, okay? Your quirk is special. Strong. You could hurt someone by accident."
I've killed before, Fern didn't say. Demons. Dark mages. Enemies in war. Never by accident and always with purpose.
Instead, she nodded solemnly. "I'll be careful, Mama."
Kenji joined them, ruffling Fern's hair in a gesture that would have annoyed her eighty-year-old self but somehow felt comforting now. "We're going to take you to see some specialists. They'll help you understand your quirk better. Does that sound okay?"
Do I have a choice?
"Okay," Fern said.
***
This Quirk Analysis Center was exactly as sterile and depressing as Fern expected.
White walls. Bright lights. Faint smell of disinfectant that reminded her uncomfortably of battlefields after the healers had passed through. Children of various ages sat in the waiting room, some excited, others nervous, all waiting to have their abilities measured, categorized, and filed away.
They're treating quirks like a science, Fern observed. Quantifiable. Predictable. But magic was never like that. Magic is intent and will made manifest. How do you measure that?
"Hayashi Fern?" A woman with clipboard and tired eyes called her name.
The examination room was worse. Sensors covered the walls. A oneway mirror took up one entire side; observers, undoubtedly, ready to document everything. In the center sat a chair.
"Don't worry," the examiner said, her smile professionally pleasant. "This won't hurt. We just need to understand what your quirk can do. Can you tell me what happened at the park?"
Fern sat in the chair, her feet dangling above the floor. She'd faced interrogations before; by demon generals seeking leverage, by Serie demanding mission. This was child's play by comparison.
Literally.
"There was a boy with fire," Fern said, keeping her vocabulary simple. "He was going to hurt someone. I wanted the fire to stop. So it did."
"You wanted it to stop, huh," the examiner repeated, typing notes. "Did you feel anything? Heat? Tingling? Pressure?"
Mana flowing through my meridians.
"It felt warm," Fern lied. "In my tummy."
"Interesting. Most quirks manifest as a physical sensation in the area of effect; hands for emitters, muscles for transformation types. But yours seems more... internal." The examiner gestured to a glass box in the corner. Inside, a small flame flickered on a metal plate. "Can you try to stop that fire?"
Fern studied the flame. Easy. Trivially easy. She could snuff it with a thought, or create a barrier around it, or drain the thermal energy until it had nothing left to burn.
But doing any of those would reveal more than she wanted.
How would a four-year-old with an underdeveloped quirk handle this?
She reached out with her magic—just a tendril—and disrupted the air flow around the flame. It flickered, dimmed, but didn't extinguish.
"Good! Very good!" The examiner's excitement was palpable. "You have fine control for someone so young. Now, can you try harder? Really focus on making it stop?"
She wants a show of force. To see my limits.
Fern "concentrated," her face scrunching up in exaggerated effort. She let more power flow, creating a proper suppression field. The flame died instantly.
The sensors on the walls went haywire.
"Remarkable," someone muttered from behind the mirror.
The tests continued for two hours. They had her suppress different quirks; a woman who could glow, a man who could make small objects float, even a pro-hero with a minor enhancement quirk who volunteered for "science."
Each time, Fern carefully calibrated her response. Too weak and they'd think her quirk useless. Too strong and they'd never leave her alone. She walked the tightrope, suppressing just enough to seem impressive but unrefined.
Like a diamond in the rough, she thought cynically. Potential, but not yet dangerous.
By the end, the examiner looked both thrilled and concerned.
"Fern, your quirk is very strong," she said carefully. "But it's also very dangerous if you don't learn to control it. We're going to recommend specialized training. Nothing scary," she added quickly, seeing Yuki's worried expression. "Just sessions to help her understand her limits."
"What kind of training?" Kenji asked.
"Quirk suppression therapy. Working with professionals who can teach her when and how to use her ability safely. Think of it like... physical therapy, but for quirks."
Fern listened with half her attention. The other half was focused on what she'd sensed during the tests.
Quirks weren't just biological. There was something else; an energy signature, unique to each person, that powered their abilities. When she suppressed quirks, she was disrupting that energy flow. But unlike mana, which was external and could be gathered, this energy was internal. Personal.
Which means I can't drain quirks like mana from the environment. I can only disrupt them temporarily.
That was good. If she could permanently erase quirks, she'd be a walking apocalypse in a society built on superhuman abilities.
But it also meant her magic was limited in ways it never had been before.
***
That night, Fern couldn't sleep.
She sat by her bedroom window, looking out at the city lights. Somewhere out there, heroes patrolled. All Might, the Symbol of Peace, kept the darkness at bay. Children dreamed of attending UA Academy, of becoming heroes themselves.
A society built on heroism, she mused. On individuals with power using it to protect others. It's not so different from adventurers, really. Except here, it's systematized, regulated, even turned into a career.
In her old life, power was something you earned through study, through sacrifice, through decades of discipline. Here, people were born with it. A genetic lottery that determined your worth before you could even walk.
How many people with incredible quirks never become heroes because they're not flashy enough? How many weak quirks hide brilliant minds?
She thought of Frieren, who'd lived a thousand years and still chose to travel with a party of "normal" people. Stark, who had no magic but could split mountains with his axe. Sein, whose healing was mundane compared to arch-mages but who saved more lives through compassion than power.
Strength isn't just about power. I learned that. So why does this world seem to have forgotten?
A knock on her door interrupted her thoughts.
"Fern?" Yuki peeked in. "You should be sleeping, sweetie."
"Can't sleep, Mama."
Yuki entered, sitting on the edge of Fern's small bed. "Are you worried? About the training?"
I'm worried about living another eighty years in a world that isn't mine. I'm worried about forming attachments that will hurt when everyone I care about dies before me. I'm worried that I'll forget Frieren's face, Stark's laugh, the weight of my old staff in my hands.
"A little," Fern admitted.
"You don't have to be scared of your quirk," Yuki said gently. "It's a part of you. Learning to control it will just help you feel more confident. And who knows? Maybe one day you'll be a hero, using your quirk to help people."
Fern looked at her mother's earnest expression.
A hero.
She'd never wanted to be a hero. Even in her old life, she'd been an adventurer out of necessity, a mage because Frieren had trained her, a warrior because war had demanded it.
But if she was going to live in this world—truly live, not just exist—maybe she needed a purpose. Something to fill the void left by everyone she'd lost.
"Maybe," Fern said quietly.
Yuki smiled, kissed her forehead, and left.
Alone again, Fern returned to the window. She raised her hand, letting a small spark of magic dance across her fingertips. Real magic. The same power that had once leveled fortresses and slain demons.
If I'm going to be here, she decided, I'll do it my way. Not as a quirk user pretending to be a mage. But as a mage learning to exist in a world of quirks.
And maybe...hmmmm maybe I can prevent some of the tragedies I see coming.
She'd lived through history once before. Studied it extensively in this new life. She knew what was coming; the rise of the League of Villains, the fall of All Might, the war that would consume hero society. All about patterns.
I couldn't save everyone in my last life. But maybe here…
The thought was dangerous. Intoxicating. Terrifying.
Fern closed her hand, extinguishing the magic.
One step at a time. First, survive childhood. Master this new body. Understand this world's rules. Then? Hmmm, then she'd decide what kind of person—what kind of hero—she wanted to be.
Outside her window, a hero flew past, their quirk leaving a trail of light against the dark sky. Fern watched until they disappeared, then finally went to bed. Her dreams were filled with fire and ice, magic and quirks, the past and future tangled together like threads she couldn't quite unravel.