Blue balls of light gathered over the palm of my right hand, coalescing to form a card. Slowly spinning over my hand, the tarot card was reminiscence of the ones in the game Persona, this one depicting a sun with a face and rays of blackness racing out from it like flames.

The Sun tarot card. I wasn’t too brushed up on the meaning of tarot cards so the whole meaning behind the thing was lost on me, but this item could heal me. I was a little tempted to try and use it here and now, but this thing had a cooldown and I was the son of someone known or going to be known as the Hero Killer.

I didn’t want to be caught out with a cooldown on something so important on the off chance something did happen to me.

With another thought a black helmet didn’t form but simply appeared in place on my head.

“Whoa.” I muttered to myself, leaning closer to the bathroom mirror. Somehow, despite the light being on, the intricate thing completely shrouded the parts of my face that should’ve been visible in unnatural darkness. And, as soon as I thought about the glow the description mentioned, an ominous orange red glow took shape where my eyes would’ve been.

Okay, trash tier or not, this thing was cool as hell.

On the practical side of things, the description said it was pretty durable and with these shadows, I guess I could use it to hide my identity in a pinch? I wasn’t planning on doing anything illegal or be a vigilante, all that more trouble than it’s worth in a world full of superheroes, but it was something to keep in mind.

Helmet removed, my face returning to normal, I ran water over it.

It was instant. No steam. No heat. Nothing. One moment part of the helmet was dripping with water and after a thought from me it was dry.

At the same time, I felt something shift in me. It wasn’t by much, the amount pretty negligeable for intents and purposes, but as foreign as the…empowering energy was, that change to it was glaring to me.

With a thought the helm and card both vanished.

---/Abilities\---

-Active (1/1) (Switch Cooldown 4:45)

Enflame

-Inactive-

Dry

And with another thought a window popped up showing that, just as intended, my abilities swapped places. I might’ve wanted something better than Enflame but I sure as well wasn’t going to be caught in a bad situation with Dry equipped.

The switch triggered a five minute cool down timer to appear beside the ability slot. I guess the system came with limits and no matter how many abilities I got, I wouldn’t be running around switching between them nonstop.

First chance I got, I’d be trying out Enflame before I kept dogging on it. Preferably when I was alone and didn’t have to worry about setting off any kind of fire alarms. It could turn out to be way better than its description made it out to be.

“Katsu! Are you ready yet?”

“Yeah!” I yelled back stepping back from the mirror, straightening up the collar of my uniform and heading out.

Before all that, I had to get through a day of school.

XOXO

What year did My Hero Academia’s main plot take place? How long would it be till the stuff my father was up to became news and he was officially dubbed the Hero Killer? Did that already happen? How old was I in relation to the main cast of students?

If I had answers to all that I could make a more concrete plan. But I didn’t.

Rather than stressing about that, I focused on what I knew for a fact.

I had a useful quirk. An average at best body. At least one ability from the gacha system that could be used in combat. Some kind of energy to power that ability. And some kind of pocket space for items from the gacha.

Train, study, and experiment. A simple plan maybe but it tackled the core issue of being in this world at such a precarious time period. I needed to be able to defend myself and to do that effectively, I needed to learn to make effective use of everything from my quirk to all that came with the Chaos Gacha System.

Side objectives included figuring out what else counted as feats for more tickets, so I could get a ton more stuff. And……my father was still a can of worms I wasn’t sure I could do anything about.

He was a radicalized murderer. What truth might’ve existed his beliefs aside, running around killing people who saved others, even if it was for less than altruistic reasons, was hard, damn near impossible to justify unless those heroes were truly up to something corrupt. But the Hero Killer Stain didn’t keep his killings to the corrupt; anyone that fell below his standards could be a target.

That included children.

His death….

No point in thinking about that right now.

Looking up from my hands, I glanced around the stands I was sitting. Right now, my class was in the middle of our gym period, which was currently being treated as something of a free period, students spread out across the wide spanning track, up in the stands alongside me, or in the actual gym, playing games.

Digging in the pocket of my gym shorts, I pulled out the pack of eraser caps I’d found in my bag. Not the best thing to use flames on but if Enflame worked the way I thought it did, it wouldn’t be much of a problem. Pulling a cap out of the pack, I rolled it between my fingers. With ease I tore a bit of it up.

No ideas what properties Enflame could mimic from this thing but maybe it’d boost the durability.

Shifting so that my track jacket covered up what I was doing, I focused.

That cool empowering energy responded to my intention immediately. A coating of orange flames flared to life around the eraser cape. I winced, the heat hitting my face and embers of it burning at my fingers.

Dammit. I’d hoped it’d come with some kind of heat resistance but decided not to take the risk and try it on an object rather than myself.

Ignoring the burn, I tried to rip at the flame coated eraser cap again. This time it took much more force, but I did manage to rip the thing before the flame became too much, a thought causing it to flicker out.

It wasn’t useless, definitely something that could be used in conjunction with some kind of weapon, but my one ability burned me. I really wasn’t off to a promising start when it came to everything this gacha system was giving me.

The cool energy within me had come to a rest, a far bigger chuck of it drained compared to when I used Dry, but already beginning to replenish itself. Could I increase my efficiency with that energy through use or did I have to rely on the tickets for some kind of boost? Despite the game like windows, I didn’t have a stat window about myself showing up.

Just another thing to test.

Hopefully all my gym periods were like this.

My quirk, the gacha abilities, and other questionable stuff. I didn’t want to end up messing up her apartment with any of that stuff so this period would have to do as a place to train all that unless I could find some other place. Aunt Nozomi took her whole temporary guardian role seriously, but she wasn’t anything like a helicopter parent.

I think I had an old skateboard somewhere in my room so I could probably get away with riding that somewhere isolated near the apartment.

XOXO

Skateboard dropped as I ran forward, I stepped onto it, waving to Aunt Nozomi who was watching from the upper floors of the apartment building.

As expected, she let me go without any kind of a hassle other than telling me to be back at a certain time and not to get into any trouble. Guess she was happy to see me actually going outside instead of mopping around in my room all day. While I couldn’t say I fully enjoyed the struggle of that other life between work, school, and little free time, teenage angst, even if it was a little justified in my case, was something I could’ve gone without.

I guess I was getting the best of both worlds with this meshing of experiences; a more realistic understanding of how the world worked and the free time to actually decide where I wanted to end up in it.

Shaking myself out of those thoughts, I enjoyed the wind sweeping through my hair as I skated around our block.

Musutafu, Japan.

The bad luck of being born so close to the main plot aside, Musutafu was only a prefecture over. Despite recently moving with Aunt Nozomi here in the Aichi Prefecture after she secured a new remote job, I didn’t really know much about any of it. Besides going with her to the store sometimes, I didn’t bother taking a look around or doing anything on my own.

I spent the next hour or so fixing that issue by skating around, taking a good look at any spots that stood out.

Beyond the residential areas, it actually turned out to be a pretty busy place, the city we lived in full of people, especially the shopping areas. Besides a quick look through some windows, I didn’t bother too much with that, focusing instead on other things like the beach, parks, or other places that, while they could be busy, was also wide enough that I could find myself a small space to keep to myself.

Foot placed on the ground and coming to a stop, I eventually found myself looking around a large park that wasn’t too far from Aunt Nozomi’s apartment building. With a few trails running throughout it and a pretty heavy forest that ran down a slope, this didn’t seem like a bad place for what I wanted to do.

Depending on how much control I may or may not have had over Enflame, a forest fire might be a concern if I wasn’t careful, but in terms of everything else, it was perfect.

Kicking up my skateboard, I took a seat on a nearby bench, watching others walk the trails.

I guess now was a good a time as any to use that advantage ticket.

[Rolling Advantage Silver Random Gacha Ticket…]

[Soul Solid

|Uncommon Item|

One Piece - A cane sword belonging to Brook of the Straw Hat Pirates. This sword is extremely sharp and durable, not having dulled even after years of use. It is also extremely dapper.

Or

Background NPC

|Uncommon Trait|

You fade into the background really easily, unless you do something to draw attention to yourself people overlook you very often and it becomes very hard to notice you. Does not work on people who are looking for you or are aware that you specifically are there. Stranger class abilities are slightly more potent.]

Thank the RNG gods that I didn’t roll trash stuff this time.

I was definitely more of a trait and ability guy but in this instance, I couldn’t really justify taking the Background NPC trait. In a world full of impressionable personalities like Bakugo’s or Mineta’s, fading into the background was as simple as keeping my mouth shut and not doing anything unnecessary. And even if it did make it that much easier, its use would fade away if I ever became well known which was a distinct possibility.

On the other hand, having a weapon justified itself. I wasn’t a fan of One Piece but based off the weapon’s rank and description I imagined it’d be eclipsed by something else sooner or later, but as long as it stayed in the storage space that seemed to come with gacha system, I had something that could work with Enflame at all times from this point onward.

That was the hope anyways.

I mentally picked Solid Soul the windows fading away as I leaned back.

I was fourteen and in my last year of junior high. If I wanted to enter U.A. right after graduating that only something around a year to train myself up for it.

Hopefully I got some better rolls before then.

XOXO