Chapter 4. "Don't Doubt Yourself." Part I.
"Shoda-senpai, if you're not busy, may I ask you to spare a few minutes of your time for a conversation with me?" the brunette said quietly as she approached my desk, giving a minimal bow — just enough to read as polite, but not so much as to seem excessive, flattering, and therefore strange.
A clean opening, in other words. Calculated.
And yes — she'd spoken quietly, but just loud enough that most of the class went silent and turned to stare at us.
I stared back, frowning.
I had nothing against this girl in general, or against her attention specifically. However: first, I was focused on getting acquainted with my still-unnamed quirk. Second, I'd sworn off interfering in the canon until the key events of the series. And third, I wasn't expecting anything good from whatever this conversation was going to be.
In Japanese, quite a lot can be determined from the choice of particles and honorific suffixes before a conversation even begins. The fact that the future hero had used "senpai" rather than the standard "san" or "kun" — the latter of which, depending on context, could come across as overfamiliarity or even a confession of feelings — clearly communicated that she considered me her superior in some respect.
So what could have prompted her interest in my humble person, mixed with deference toward an upperclassman? We were obviously the same age. My academic achievements were above average, but nothing supernatural in a country of dedicated studiers — and she hadn't had many opportunities to evaluate them yet. Physical education? I kept an intentionally low profile there. Or maybe she was interested in me for my looks? One cannot argue with the truth — ha — but the age wasn't quite right for that. I was surrounded by children.
It didn't take a genius to figure out she was interested in something hero-related. Most likely she'd ask for advice about the entrance process, or want to know what I knew about the entrance exam.
Boring.
So I decided to be polite enough not to offend her, but unpleasant enough to kill any desire to talk to me for the next couple of years. There'd be time for the rest later.
I sighed with exaggerated heaviness and nodded.
"Of course, Kodai-san." — no, I'm not playing your game — and crossed my arms. *Go ahead, then.*
The girl in question, for her part, didn't so much as blink, as though she'd expected nothing different, and continued evenly:
"Since you, Shoda-senpai, have stated that your goal is admission to U.A. Academy, that makes us rivals — I also intend to become a hero. However, at present we are members of the same close-knit community, fellow students, and so I humbly ask you, as a kohai asks her senpai, to share with me the wisdom that grants you such confidence when speaking of entering the world's finest academy for professional heroes…"
"Hm?"
That was quite the construction. I raised an eyebrow and started running the possibilities.
Had she seen one of my training sessions? I always made sure no one was nearby. Had she asked around at the Jade Lion? No, old Akira only dealt with his own people, he didn't entertain outsiders. Could she have gotten hold of my quirk screening report somehow? Where would I have slipped up? And she hadn't said anything about raw power. Not to mention that the actual foundation of my confidence was a cartoon series I'd watched in another life, in which we had both gotten in anyway.
The silence was stretching, so I asked absently, buying time:
"Why do you think I know some kind of secret, Kodai-san? What if I'm just… an arrogant little jerk?" Someone in the class snickered.
"You're very confident in yourself," came the quiet, concise reply.
The gears ground.
Hold on.
And? That was it?
Apparently my bewildered irritation did show on my face, because the girl faltered slightly — *so you do have emotions* — and murmured even more quietly:
"Of course, that's only to be expected from someone with an enhancement-type quirk, but… I was hoping you might have another reason for that confidence. Some advice for people like…"
*Don't tell me you're—*
"People like?"
"…people with weak quirks."
Right.
When I understood she wasn't joking, angry fireworks started going off inside my skull.
I slapped both hands on the desk — no property damage this time — and said, almost sharply:
"Let's go out into the corridor, shall we?" — intending to give the foolish girl a clear and thorough explanation of what a weak quirk actually was, and what wasn't.
Which didn't happen.
"But class starts in a minute…" the quiet one suddenly pushed back. Which was striking, given that she was evidently so uncertain of herself and her quirk that she'd come asking advice from what amounted to a complete stranger.
Steady, gentle, shy, polite — and then, out of nowhere, backbone. Interesting.
"If you're even afraid to be late for class, how are you going to fight villains?" I said, with a short, mocking laugh.
"But our attendance marks will go down… and we have written exams coming up in every subject…"
My enthusiasm evaporated. What a stickler.
"Fine… okay, we'll go out after class."
By the appointed time I'd cooled off entirely and had already regretted the promise a hundred times over, continually catching curious glances from classmates and pointed looks from Yui herself.
But when the agonizing academic hour finally ended, I simply couldn't bring myself to stand up the girl who was once again fidgeting with the hem of her skirt and waiting by my desk. It wasn't as though she was doing it with particular timidity or self-consciousness, but there was something off about her. Something… fractured, somehow.
I headed silently toward the corridor and gestured for her to follow.
Yui followed, a couple of steps behind.
Our classmates followed her, a couple of steps behind.
"…"
Sighing, I moved to the far end of the corridor, where there was a quiet enough dead end. Upper-year students occasionally smoked there or made out, but in the morning there was a chance of finding it empty. It was.
Stopping in front of the only window, I looked sternly toward the turn leading back to the classrooms.
"I didn't invite any of you."
I tapped my foot with a light amplification, kicking up dust in a couple-meter radius.
Curious noses sneezed and retreated.
I had no doubt they hadn't gone far. Kids were curious and persistent. Not that it really mattered — I wasn't planning to share any secrets.
Yui sneezed quietly too, burying her nose in her sleeve with a kind of absurd, unintentional cuteness.
I turned back to her and leaned against the windowsill, watching dust motes dance in the sunbeams. Warm.
I had to make myself look at the girl instead, so I went back to frowning.
Then I spoke — there was no getting around it.
"Listen, Yui. You're not a stupid girl. So why are you saying such nonsense? And it's not as though you're just saying it — you clearly believe it."
"I don't understand…"
She clearly hadn't expected that, because she actually stepped back. Her bag's keychain swayed and caught the sun — a little matryoshka doll, red and white.
"There are people who say, around every corner, that there's no such thing as weak or strong quirks. That there are no bad or good ones. But claiming that in a world where All Might exists, while someone else can barely unravel a piece of clothing into threads — that's just idiotic. The first is a great hero. The second, at best, is looking at a career in fashion design. Right?"
"…yes."
"Now let's look at the top-ranked Pro Heroes of Japan. Who's currently at number five, do you remember?"
"Best Jeanist…"
"Right. Do you know what he can do?" I closed my eyes, enjoying the warmth on my back.
"Y-yes. I read that he can immobilize an entire crowd in an instant… and move rapidly… and create restraints and traps… all through controlling the threads that fabric is made of…"
"Yes. Tsunagu Hakamata is probably the most technically precise hero currently active. He also runs his own modeling agency and owns a very large yacht." I stretched. "He went to U.A., by the way. Do you follow what I'm telling you?"
"That he didn't give up and got in despite having a weak quirk?"
If I kept sighing like this, I'd develop emphysema.
"No. I'm telling you this because, unlike most people who want to become heroes — or end up becoming villains — Tsunagu has a brain. It works. He uses it."
"…"
"His quirk is not combat-oriented. In a direct confrontation with any opponent, with any idiot villain, he'd lose. But Best Jeanist was smart enough, and dedicated enough, to turn it into a genuine combat tool. He developed countless ways to use those threads of his to support and assist other heroes. He learned to work with different types of fabric, and to prepare for specific opponents and scenarios — which is why he always wears a scarf, keeping an extra resource handy. He figured out that denim was the strongest, most fire-resistant, and most responsive to his 'Thread Manipulation' quirk, and that became his whole image. He studied the technical side of things — different types of fabric, the details of stitching and garment construction — to speed up his techniques, strengthen his restraints and cocoons, push them further — and in the process became an expert on fashion."
As I spoke, Yui's eyes were getting wider and wider, until I almost started believing I really had ended up in an anime.
"Do you understand now? There are no strong quirks and weak quirks. There are only strong people and weak people. If someone truly is a fighter — someone who wants to be able to protect themselves and others, to fight for what they believe in — they will find a way to use any advantage, any weapon, any resource available to them. Including any quirk. Yes, people with straightforward, easy-to-use abilities are lucky in certain ways. But opponents and circumstances are never the same twice, and more often than not, the winner isn't the one who's stronger head-on — it's the one who's smarter and better prepared. Flexible thinking, solid tactics, gadgets that extend your quirk's range and usefulness across as many situations as possible — that's what separates the ones who want to become heroes from the ones who actually do. Not the luck of the draw at birth."
Yui listened. I caught my breath. I couldn't remember the last time I'd talked this much.
"As for you specifically… your quirk is a lot of things, but weak is not one of them. It's flexible, it's remarkably multifunctional, it has significant offensive and defensive potential, it can function as hero support, and it pairs well with other quirks. Without knowing the details, I can come up with ten ways off the top of my head to use it against villains or in disaster relief, and everything it needs to work effectively is solid preparation. And brains. So your doubts make absolutely no sense to me — you're clearly not stupid. That's, more or less, everything I wanted to say."
The girl had gone quiet, forgetting entirely to keep picking at her skirt, so I figured the audience was over and turned to leave. The Moor had done his work, as they say.
Sure. As if.
"Shoda-senpai, please — forgive me for my stupidity and selfishness!" she said to my back — though this was still Yui saying it, so in practice it came out more as a quiet but distinct statement. "I was showing nothing but unworthy envy of you, your confidence, and your quirk. I could never have imagined the amount of thought and preparation you've put into understanding what it means to be a hero…"
God. Does she read Ivanhoe on a daily basis?
I did my best to keep the irritation off my face.
"It's fine, really. Since we've already talked, let's just head back to—"
"Tell me what to do."
What?
I turned back around and stared at her, one eyebrow up.
The girl in question was staring at the floor, nervously turning a red-and-white-cased smartphone in her hands — the matryoshka keychain again — and stumbling through an attempt to explain what exactly she was asking for:
"…the U.A. entrance exam… though I know it's not really something one should say, but it does seem to me that it's slightly… u-unfair in its structure… I understand that it's for the best of the best, but the entrance exam has a practical component… applicants need to demonstrate proficient use of their quirk, but… I want to enroll in a hero program precisely so that someone can teach me to use it, r-right? It seems like an exam designed for people who are already trained… but nobody is training me, because using quirks in everyday life is prohibited, isn't it? But then how am I supposed to get better, and where am I supposed to find a teacher? My p-parents don't… I have no one to ask, and working heroes are too busy, I know because I wrote to some of them… the ones whose abilities seemed similar to mine… Rock Lock, for example… but…"
She was holding her phone again like a set of worry beads.
I'd clearly misread her. I'd assumed she was a quiet library type — an Ayanami Rei at minimum settings — but the moment you touched on a subject she cared about, opened the "social shell" slightly, and…
She reminded me of the anime's protagonist, actually. The Midoriya of this world.
What had happened in her life to leave her this uncertain? This close to crushed? Or was I reading too much into it, and was this just normal for kids this age?
"All right, so what exactly do you want from me?"
Yui Kodai raised her eyes to mine, and I found myself meeting an unexpectedly strong gaze — full to the brim with a complicated cocktail of conflicting emotions. She drew a deep breath, like someone steadying themselves before jumping into ice-cold water. It was oddly endearing:
"Shoda-san… that is, senpai… you've already given me more than I'd dared to hope for. You've explained that it isn't my power that's weak — it's that I myself am being st-stupid… I'm sorry to ask for more… but… please, could you tell me how to get stronger? Please… help me become a hero."
You're joking.
Sighing — pneumonia was definitely incoming — I was about to transparently hint to the future heroine that nobody was paying me to tutor anyone.
And then I saw something familiar in her eyes. In the way she was looking at me.
Something I saw every day in the mirror. Something that had been pushing me for all these years.
The thing that had kept me going at this grinding pace for twelve years — until the results finally started being serious enough to see.
It wasn't that Yui looked particularly sweet, flustered and faintly pink-cheeked. It wasn't that she was pretty and staring at me with huge pleading eyes like a certain animated cat from a movie in my previous life. It wasn't even that all that quiet timidity and self-doubt made her look fragile and easy to hurt. That wasn't it.
It was just that for the first time, I could see hope in her eyes. A very familiar kind of hope.
And I found myself thinking that, for all our obvious differences, we weren't really that far apart.
She had a dream too. The same one.
So yes — I thought about it.
The point about quirks not being strong or weak had clearly landed, so she was teachable. And however it might look from the outside, she was capable of rational decisions and placed reaching her goal above things like pride, or the social conventions that normally governed behavior in Japan. Not everyone in her position would have asked for help. Especially not from someone her own age.
All right. Maybe I could give her a few pointers. And honestly, what harm could it do?
She was going to become a hero and a U.A. student either way. It wasn't likely to derail the canon.
So why not help someone out, just a little?
I was going to be a hero, after all.
The bell rang, but neither I nor Yui — gripping her phone tensely — moved.
The bright keychain glittered in the sun.
"Fine," I said. "I'll help. Though I'm slightly thrown off by how much faith you're putting in someone whose quirk you've barely seen — I don't mind it, I just don't entirely know what you're expecting from me. But understand this: the most important thing here is that you start thinking for your—"
"Thank you, Shoda-senpai!" I was interrupted. "I won't let you down," I was assured, with complete seriousness.
Lord.
"Alright… ahem. Let's actually go to class. Grade records and all that."
"Oh…"
---
***
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As it happened, today was my turn to clean the classroom — Japan took these duty rotations seriously, and I didn't see any reason to ask for special treatment, I wasn't made of sugar — and Yui offered to help, so we ended up alone in the room.
When we'd finished with the board and the chairs, I sat on the edge of a desk.
There was no particular rush. Ojiro had left for a regional competition that evening with his brothers and sisters — one of whom, with soft fluffy ears on top of her head, had become absolutely a cat girl, and had taken to making eyes at me, which I found more amusing than anything else. School assignments I still blew through like cracking pistachio shells, and I'd already had my full training session for the day.
Yui sat quietly in a chair a desk away and prepared to listen.
The thought crossed my mind that this was probably the first time in years I'd sat down and had an unhurried conversation with someone my own biological age of the opposite sex. Well. Starting to relax, was I. What next — back to video games? Watching anime? I'd forgotten what that was even like.
At least my life path hadn't turned me into a complete sarcastic cynic. Small mercies.
"All right, Kodai-san. What exactly are you interested in?"
"Shoda-senpai, I'm so grateful that you helped me understand my ability isn't as weak as I thought, and—"
I frowned.
"Kodai. Let's skip all the… expressions of gratitude, the formality, the etiquette. I'm a straightforward kind of person, from a straightforward family. Let's drop the honorifics."
"O-okay… Shoda."
I gave her an encouraging nod.
"I… uh…" She took a deep breath and steadied herself. "First of all, I was very much hoping to get some advice about my overall preparation strategy. And second — if it's not too presumptuous of me — I'd like to know the general strategy of your… yours."
A smirk managed to get onto my face on its own. Quiet as a mouse, this one, but don't put your finger anywhere near her mouth — she'd take the whole hand.
Asking about the mechanics of someone else's quirk was, frankly, poor form. Not done. And very few people would actually answer even in theory — everyone had their own tricks and secrets. What if a villain found out about some weakness?
Were there any secrets in how I was preparing for U.A.?
Stupid question. Of course there were. I'd spent a great deal of time and effort projecting the image of a typical close-range fighter with an enhancement quirk — something like the Rabbit Hero, or the reasonably well-known villain Muscular. I wasn't sure I could fool veterans and hardened professionals like All Might — he understood this type of quirk better than anyone — or Eraserhead. But there was a solid chance that villains wouldn't know what I was actually capable of until the very last moment. I'd be playing the "Midoriya's cousin" role in public.
Which meant all my work on reducing the activation delay and the attempts to integrate the enhancement into my movement were, to put it gently, not suitable for sharing. God willing, I'd even figure that part out before the entrance exam.
What, then, could I tell her? The value of martial arts and daily exhausting physical training? Debatable — her quirk wasn't really built for close combat, and — okay, fine. Who was I kidding. Of course that's what I was going to push.
Whatever a hero's or a villain's abilities were, physical condition, tactical knowledge, and the ability to fight were arguably more important factors than the quirk itself.
Especially since I already had an idea of how she might use her quirk in combination with combat training.
But first I needed to understand what I was actually working with, and how bad the situation was.
"…has anyone ever taught you anything? About how to use your ability, I mean. How to develop it, how to train it?"
"N-no."
Well.
Seeing my reaction, she quickly added:
"But I'm prepared to share all the details of how my quirk works, if needed."
She really was that desperate. How was it even possible that nobody had trained her with an ability this promising? She wasn't Momo, or that girl whose name I couldn't remember right now, the one who could split herself apart, levitate, and regenerate — but still.
Then again, there were extraordinarily powerful quirks everywhere in this world. I supposed governments cared more about ensuring quirk-users didn't become problems and villains than about whether they'd make capable heroes — given the overwhelming desire to become one, there'd always be candidates to choose from. Those who genuinely burned for it would find a way and learn on their own.
Seek and ye shall find, right?
"All right. My quirk — the specific training I do for it would be useless to you, and the general principles you probably already understand yourself. Are you doing any cardiovascular training? Working on your stamina?"
I received a blank stare. Adding a layer of skepticism to my own expression, I rephrased:
"Do you run? In the mornings, in the evenings — outside of gym class?"
Oh, that landed. Yui, apparently attempting to make me feel awkward by being awkward herself, stared at the desk and murmured "no."
I figured asking about self-defense lessons was pointless.
I considered how else to approach this. One way, then another, then a third.
"Okay, then let's do it like this — you go first. Tell me how you imagine using your quirk in the future, in a hero career. Based on that, I can figure out what to add to your combat approach, how to expand your technique options, and where you need to focus your attention. Deal?"
"Alright…" The brunette blinked, gathered her thoughts fairly quickly, and began to share something she'd probably never told anyone before. I couldn't say I felt particularly flattered.
Though I was also fairly certain I already knew what she was going to say.
"I think… I used to think my quirk was only good for long-range support from a distance, and maybe defense. I was planning to carry something like a bag or a few pockets loaded with small hard objects — nuts, bolts, coins, maybe some small plates or bottle caps… they can be enlarged and thrown. And you can also pick up larger objects in a fight, shrink them, and throw them… or ask someone with a lot of physical strength to do the throwing. Also…"
The phone was in her hands again. It was apparently her version of prayer beads — she turned it and fidgeted and calmed down.
In the dangling bright little charm I recognized, with some surprise, a completely ordinary Orthodox matryoshka doll. Funny.
As I'd expected, everything Yui said matched one hundred percent with what she'd demonstrated in my past-that-was-her-future. Past for me, future for her.
Direct, blunt engagement with objects. No creativity, no adaptability.
Strange that in that other timeline, professional hero instructors hadn't suggested more sophisticated tactics to her. Hm.
Well. That wasn't going to work.
I stopped her with a gesture and issued something resembling a directive:
"Here's your homework from me personally, Kodai. Put together something like a breakdown of your quirk — briefly laying out every single application you can possibly imagine for it. Every one. Obviously they should be useful, practically applicable, and at least theoretically possible, but outside of that, don't limit yourself. Unlimited resources, unlimited complexity. Understood?"
The girl nodded with complete seriousness.
"When it's ready, we'll meet after class — here… actually—" I remembered the public quirk-use prohibition — "somewhere with a bit more privacy. A park? The municipal one near the Revan station — do you know it?"
Another firm nod.
I returned it, swung my bag onto my shoulder, and headed for the door.
"Perfect. Then — see you tomorrow, Yui Kodai."
"See you tomorrow, senp… Shoda…"
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