Thorny Path of a Pro-Hero

Same Time.

Dojo "Jade Lion."

Akira Ojiro.

When Akira-sensei, along with his household, watched the boy sulking in the corner—for almost a month!—and clearly struggling with his quirk, he understandably concluded that Niren had simply... given up.

And he wasn’t at all surprised.

In the world of martial arts, as in the world of quirk users, you encounter this all the time. Someone can't overcome a limitation in their abilities, causing their entire planned development strategy to collapse. Someone can't surpass their own limits and simply burns out. With the boy’s training pace, this wouldn’t be surprising. And then there are those, especially the ones who are self-contained, talented, and proud, who can't bear the complete superiority (here, Akira allowed himself a touch of smugness) of their partner or rival.

Mashirao, having mastered the movement technique developed with his father, had simply outclassed Niren. What good is a strengthening quirk (yeah, right, strengthening, of course) if your equally strong opponent is simply several times faster?

Right, none at all.

That’s why Shoda had broken down.

Is it a pity? Yes, perhaps. Does Akira feel sorry personally? He wouldn’t say that. Yes, the boy was a good sparring partner for Mashirao, skilled and reasonably daring, but that’s about it. Niren wasn’t even his student; he already came to the dojo with his... he only approached for advice a couple of times...

Well, if Akira does feel sorry, it’s just a little bit.

Niren isn't the last, nor is he the first. Not even in this dojo. Out of which, for example, came his, Akira-sensei's, aunt, a rather famous (alas, also in the past) lioness heroine "Mane."

Or her son, Akira's cousin—Shishido, the Lion Hero—who is currently firmly settled at thirteenth place in the top professional heroes of Japan. He’s been there for several years, not moving up or down.

Yeah...

Despite Shishido being, firstly, the typical "son of the mother's friend" whom Akira was always compared to during his youth, and secondly, a rather peculiar person... well, he chose his superhero alias after his own name because "Shishido is a good name!", what more is there to add... the relationship between the brothers was decent. The Lion Hero was a good person and a good hero, and it wasn't his fault that he, Shido-kun, was lucky with his quirk (yes, yes, the very exemplar of a strengthening quirk, and with additional secondary abilities to boot).

But Akiro himself was naturally endowed with only a stubby tail, more like a monkey’s than a lion’s, and an excessively hairy chest, which he had to shave regularly to avoid annoying his wife.

If only his brother didn’t have such a fanatical obsession with his damn baseball...

Maybe they would have gotten along better.

And yet, Akira himself, Master Ojiro now, didn’t leave the dojo...

Alright, stop feeling sorry for yourself, old man.

That was a thing of the past.

Now we're dealing with the present, and specifically with a boy whose hair was a vague mix of arctic blue and steely grey, with a hint of sky blue.

A boy who surprised him again.

When a crash and a muffled gasp came from the bench of the unfortunate lad—one of Akira’s talkative nieces, emboldened, had mockingly dubbed it "Fortress of Solitude"—the young people started making all sorts of assumptions. Whispering, giggling, getting scared... And it didn’t matter. The main thing was that they didn't pick on the boy; for ordinary folks without superhuman abilities, Shoda had long been out of reach.

However, Akira’s trained eye immediately caught Niren’s satisfied smile, even though it was distorted by teeth clenched in pain.

That kind of smile, that kind of look isn’t easy to confuse with something else, especially not for a sensei with his experience: somehow, the boy had figured out how to overcome his obstacle—whatever it was.

And literally the next day, the unstoppable boy showed up at the dojo as if nothing had happened, but now with a cast.

Akira, once again, understood him perfectly well—it's hard to sit at home twiddling your thumbs, brimming with energy, if you’ve been forced to sit on the "reserves" bench for a month.

As for what Niren started... well, what did he start?

From the outside, to the untrained eye, it might have seemed like the boy had stopped wasting time and had begun practicing the most basic application of his strengthening quirk. Sometimes he would jump a couple of meters high, sometimes he would create a gust of wind with a hand strike, sometimes he would leave a dent in the wall with a kick, that rascal!

But Akira wasn’t an idiot. He had trained quirk users who then became heroes, even if not of the first rank, and he knew enough about quirks, at least enough to understand—Niren’s quirk is anything but strengthening. People with classic enhancement quirks have muscle fibers that are differently structured; their muscles are often arranged and attached completely differently. And those people move differently—precise, controlled, low-amplitude, meticulously calculated movements, constantly controlling themselves and their surroundings, always feeling a restrained force, like a dam covered in cracks barely holding back a tsunami of strength and power. Brr.

Akira once attended a hero gathering from the top thousand by his brother's invitation, and he saw that bunny girl Mirko—he literally got goosebumps and his hair stood on end! The girl constantly jumps three meters high, not because she's an idiot, but because she can't help it, because she really will smash everything around with an unintentional movement!

Niren is not like that. He moves like a perfectly ordinary person—yes, trained, yes, with the confidence of an experienced fighter... which, by the way, doesn’t match his age, but that’s another story.

Yet, the kid could leave a dent in a steel wall with a kick and cover about... how many meters in a single jump just a minute ago? Five? Seven?

In short, it's something like contact telekinesis. Or a replay of a previously performed action? Kinetic energy manipulation, maybe? Definitely a quirk with combat potential, but it provides minimal protection for the body of its user—otherwise, the guy wouldn’t have flinched from hitting the bench. Akira wasn’t well-versed in quirk factor theory; after all, he’s a coach, not a scientist. But if there’s no protection, the quirk is by nature a remote one. Oh, and it’s also delayed—sometimes, in the midst of sparring, the effects of Niren’s powerful strikes slightly "lagged." Perhaps the quirk is more defensive in nature, like creating traps or something...

But does it even matter that his son's sparring partner didn’t care about this logic?

Initially skeptical, Akira witnessed Niren mastering new possibilities with giant leaps, catching up with Mashirao.

And when he finally did, Akira realized that the boy in front of him wasn’t just a talented or determined kid. First, he was a fighter who didn’t give up and pursued his goal, whatever it might be. Second, he was a raw talent who, out of nothing... okay, not out of nothing, but from a limited second-rate quirk from the "B-list," created... something.

Niren, as if a blacksmith of his own fate, bent and reforged the very foundation of applying this quirk without changing its essence. Turning it into something entirely different, far more dangerous, versatile, and multifunctional. As if he were using it against its "factory settings," as if he knew exactly what he would get in the end, and most importantly, it worked!

Seriously, the boy became several times more dangerous in just two months—he was already an extremely strong fighter, especially for his... how old was he... thirteen, maybe, years. With the help of his quirk, he stood a chance of taking down even the toughest adult.

But now, with such speed and mobility...

And that’s not even considering the real potential of the full range of his quirk’s applications, which, as Akira suspected, he hadn’t even come close to seeing, since Niren hadn’t fully demonstrated it.

It was frightening to imagine what he would eventually become.

And, as much as it was painful to admit, with such potential, he would leave Mashi-kun far behind... just like Shishido had left him behind.

Akira gritted his teeth.

The issue, in the case of these boys, is simple math. You can’t argue with the numbers: Mashi has only one "superlimb." Even if his tail were as strong as All Might’s arm, or even just a finger—that would be enough for a successful hero career, trust me—that’s still a ratio of one to four. One tail for Mashirao, and four arms and legs for Niren.

And in the context of a spar between two roughly equal opponents, that decided... everything.

Sighing, the mustached and slightly tailed man returned to the present, closely observing the fight and making mental notes.

Mashirao’s technique was top-notch, as always, but his mobility was already lagging—it’s impossible, with one super-tail, to move quickly around the field and block attacks from all sides at the same time. And Niren’s blows were... better not to block them or take them on a hard block. As a result, Mashi was forced to go on the defensive, spinning like a top on the spot and taking all the blows on the slide.

Niren took advantage of this—on acceleration, he entered from a blind spot, a blind spot that Mashi himself had created, and finished the fight with a powerful sweep that sent his son flying head over heels.

However, at the last moment, Mashirao managed to react and, hooking the brash boy's shoulders with the tuft of his tail, pulled him down as well, dragging him by inertia toward those much-abused mats.

Bam! The room was filled with applause, groans, muffled curses, and admiring whispers.

On the contrary, Niren just lay on his back, arms spread out, breathing heavily, silently smiling at the ceiling.

Akira Ojiro grinned into his mustache. Well, Mashi-kun still has a few surprises left for this prodigy. He’ll make sure of it...

***

Niren.

After my triumphant return to the ranks of the "ass-kickers"—at least in this particular dojo—I was slowly limping home (it was a Sunday evening, after all). The demands of my dark heart for revenge, which had been piling up over the last few months, were finally satisfied.

Though Mashi, that sly dog, managed to catch me off guard at the end! He's such a simple guy, not particularly cunning or inventive, and his quirk (visually, at least) isn't all that impressive, yet still—you can't take your eyes off him for a second! And with a teacher like his, no wonder—before you can even say "dog," Mashirao's already circling around you with a guilty smile, ready to overtake you.

Well, I guess there's still room for growth, huh...

By the way, a couple of times during training, in a fit of passion, I actually called him "tail-wagging mutt" and "flea-ridden." The way his face twisted into this confused and offended look made me apologize and promise never to call him that again.

Out loud.

We mustn't hurt the puppies, right!

Smirking, I looked down at my feet.

The steady movement of my sneakers sparked a thought: if, by maneuvering my hands during the hopping, I create two quirk activation points with a single clap... and in a fight, I jump around like a grasshopper, marking my own soles and enhancing each step... then technically, every step could leave a marker on the ground.

So, in essence, I could mine the entire battlefield in real-time.

Yeah... the possibilities this opens up. Of course, keeping track of even a quarter of those points seems impossible. Or rather, it would have seemed impossible. Before.

Lately, I've started to think there's something... not wrong, but rather too right with my memory in this world! It's not quite eidetic, no, and many things from the same school subjects that I hadn't paid much attention to needed to be relearned. Plus, I actively used knowledge from my previous world—mnemonics, flashcards, spaced repetition, and so on. Nothing special there. Although, this time I was putting in more effort overall—and the results were generally better.

However, the part of my memory responsible for remembering the surrounding terrain on a visual and, to a lesser extent, tactile level... the very points where I place my quirk markers... that part of my memory works incredibly well. Superhumanly well, even. I remember dozens of such points and can hold them in my head for many minutes without much difficulty. As a side effect, I have an amazing sense of direction. Maybe this is how the so-called "quirk factor" works—that complex of adaptive reactions of the human body to a superpower? After all, these adaptations vary for everyone.

This would explain a lot—how my formed consciousness could have "written itself" onto the underdeveloped cortex of a newborn's brain when I reincarnated, and why I have an entirely normal, fragile body that's not resistant to physical damage. Sigh.

Back to my "mining" strategy...

Turns out, I'm... Cyrax!

Or even cooler and more stylish, Smoke!

God, it's amazing the things my brain remembers sometimes... after almost twenty years, and one transmigration-reincarnation...

Here's the deal: in fighting games—specifically in my favorite Mortal Kombat (which, damn it, doesn’t exist here)—one of the existing tactics involves using an uppercut, or some other move, to lift the enemy into the air, and then a memorized combo keeps them airborne, preventing them from landing, regrouping, and blocking, thus breaking your combo.

So, in Mortal Kombat 9, which was always my favorite, only two characters, Smoke and Cyrax, could multiply an opponent by zero with just one endless combo, lifting them once into the air and taking down all one hundred percent of their health bar in one go, kicking them and keeping them airborne.

But it wasn't the easiest task, and I remember wasting a couple of evenings on grinding it. My fingers hurt after that...

So, I'm exactly like Cyrax, only better-looking. For me, a fighting tactic where I circle around the opponent under the quirk's speed boost on my legs, attacking with the same enhancement on my hands while forcing them to step onto a "bomb"—a marker left earlier—that would launch them into the air, or at least knock their footing out, depriving them of balance and making them vulnerable, is quite real.

And then, I add a vertical boost...

I'm actually quite lucky that this world doesn't have the typical fantasy elements found in so many isekai (this is still Japan, though in another world, but aside from hero careers and fanboying over them, the youth's interests are the same), like MANA. No, seriously? If I died and woke up in another world, ridiculous, bright, anime-like, and literally full of quirks, doesn't it mean I could have just as likely woken up in any other anime or movie? Like that popular ninja series, or that universe with Iron Man, Spider-Man, Captain America, and all the others. Or those fantasy isekai worlds.

So I'm lucky, very lucky!

Why? Because I am he... oops, wrong point. Because quirks are compared to muscles for a reason—they can be trained just like muscles, and through those same trainings, they allow dozens, if not hundreds, of uses in a row without much strain.

And that's why I can use my markers already, probably up to a hundred impulses in a single fight, with different purposes and at different ranges (my own personal training in secluded corners of parks, where I practiced long-range quirk applications and combining it with close combat, didn't go anywhere), because I've "leveled up" into a versatile and almost, aside from my almost-zero defense, universal fighter.

Otherwise, if this were another world and I were a mage with similar abilities, I'd either be a glass cannon with only one or two spells or a weak, useless melee fighter.

However, any "leveling up," like any character class, comes with its downsides.

I remember in the version of reality that was, for me, an anime about "pro-heroes," my chubby and short alter ego Nirengeki attacked enemies from a distance, bombarding them with a hail of projectiles—random junk that he threw precisely and then accelerated with the enhanced throw. There was even some kind of ricochet calculation... A ranged fighter and support, in every sense.

I can't do that.

Still, no matter what, I chose close combat and ignored ranged attacks. Maybe that was a mistake. Definitely a mistake, since any advantage in a fight is useful for my endeavors.

But I don't regret it, because I didn't develop that skill, focusing on my own combat potential and simply on basic survival.

And it's not all bad with my range, if you think about it: since I was sitting by the window in my first school, barely reaching, breaking off tree branches outside with my quirk, which I touched during recess—much time has passed. I can now activate a pre-placed marker from almost a kilometer away. I can "remember" them even further, just losing the feeling until I return to the range of sensitivity.

So, the main thing is to get to them to activate. And my movement speed has recently gotten much better.

Good stuff.

Here's another fun thing, by the way. In our story, there's the main villain who takes, combines, and gives away quirks, and there's a secondary character—a kid, a hero in training—who simply copies them. He seems to have limitations on the number of quirks, the duration he can hold them, and the inability to combine them... So, is it just me, or is there something suspiciously similar between them? Could this guy from Class B be some unsuccessful offspring of All-for-One? Well, why not—he's a bad guy too...

Blinking, I realized I had been hypnotizing the front door of the house for about five minutes. I hadn't even noticed arriving, lost in thought.

And, perhaps, I can also blame these musings for my total unpreparedness for the... situation my parents had set up.

Illustrations:

Shishido, the Lion Hero, in all the cringe-worthy splendor of a man with a stuffed toy around his neck.

Mashirao. Probably during the fight with Niren :)