Chapter 2: A Rotten Fresh Start
Made some changes to the MC's appearance, he has brown hair not blonde.
I should also mention that the system will take a back seat sometimes and the story wont completely revolve around it, and also another reminder that this story is gonna start slow, slice of life is a tag after all.
That's pretty much it for now, if you have any questions or ideas let me know here.
Enjoy!
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An alternate universe.
I wasn't in the anime version of My Hero Academia, as with just a small sift through my new set of memories—which were both mine and not—I could easily recall that children developed their Quirks at the ages six to eight, not four.
Throw in that hero schools were universities or private institutions that might as well be universities, and you have the world I know called home.
However, it seemed the key pieces were there, because as I sat at my chair and clicked and clacked on a personal computer I had tucked into the corner of my messy bedroom I had yet to clean, the internet answered some questions and gave me more to ask.
All Might was present, but he moved all across Japan and had yet to settle anywhere.
He was also able to cross the country in three minutes tops, meaning he and All for One hadn't almost killed each other yet.
That gave me some hints of where in canon I landed, but with more cursory searches, an exact time line was hard to make.
NightEyes' agency had not been made yet, Eraser Head wasn't a teacher at UA, and Hawks was ranked three hundredth on the hero rankings official website. There wasn't even a picture that showed him, just information on his build, hero name, and Quirk [Fierce Wings].
I exhaled, letting all the stress at trying and failing to find where I was in the story go for a moment, knowing that this was a rabbit hole that might never end.
There was also the fact this was very much not the anime, but a living breathing world, seeing as for the day and a half I had been in my apartment, nothing had happened.
No villain came breaking in, no canon character called or asked where I was, and the only interesting thing I learned was my apartment was located only an hour from Musutafu; oh and my apartment complex was a well known place where other heroes stayed.
I sighed again and let go of the gamer mouse I was holding, bringing my hand up to see the fat sausages I now called fingers.
I was overweight, plain and simple, and I hadn't looked in the mirror since my initial awakening.
Nope, I even flinched at anything that might show me a reflection, and a shame I never had in my life as Damien overwhelmed me anytime I did get a glimpse.
I was an amalgamation of two people, both down on their luck, both the same age, both having died after drinking way too much, and both having at one point had hope to be something.
Two sets of memories, which for some people might be a blessing, but all it gave me forty years of regrets.
Although here, in this world that was a slice of an anime called My Hero Academia, I was already something.
A hero.
Regrettably though, I wouldn't get years to study, to learn, to actually find out what kind of future I wanted, and I wasn't going to be able to attend UA.
No, I was Takashi Fumetsu, Hero name Iron Head, rank 415, and I had to show up to an agency I had been employed at as a glorified sidekick for an entire year in two hours.
The Majestic Agency, belonging to an actual canon character hero Majestic, albeit small, and one Takashi had never met.
I was a nobody, an extra in an extraordinary world, nothing special at all.
How ironic.
However, I wasn't going to let this stop me, I couldn't let it.
All my college life as Damien I wanted a fresh start, and all of Takashi's life he wanted the will to be a hero that actually did something.
Damien, the old me, got his wish, that left Takashi still without the very thing he wanted.
I didn't like that.
However, I wasn't funny like FatGum and could play off his appearance with humor, wasn't strong enough that it overshadowed everything else about me, and I wasn't good enough for anything else.
Things had to change, and luckily, I had something to get it started.
A system, one missing a few bits and bobs, but one nonetheless.
'Status.'
A blue screen slid into existence.
[
Name: Takashi Fumestu.
Age: 20
Weight: 550lbs
Height: 5'11
Class: none(selection needed)*
Quirk: Shrug(LV2)*
Quests (1)*
Strength- 35
Speed- 10
Dexterity- 5
Constitution- 100
Endurance- 11
Charm- 3
]
I had quests now, or a quest, which had been a surprise to me.
Thankfully, they were optional, and they always would be, something told to me by the system itself.
I had already spent hours brainstorming who or what gave it to me, but between being in a fictional world and literally being conjoined with another person, this was the least of my worries.
I had an advantage, and I was going to leverage it as much as I could.
I eagerly pulled up my singular quest.
[
Clock In: go to your agency
Reward: 1 AP
]
I also needed to select my class, but I wanted a feel for what I was dealing with before doing it. Old Takashi didn't know much about actually being a hero, since he had been a glorified pencil pusher for an entire year before he kicked the bucket.
So, it was now March again, the same time he had graduated with high hopes before reality came crashing down and snubbed out his fire.
I was going to burn brighter, that was a promise, so I picked my fat ass off my chair, changed into my hero outfit that consisted of a giant black military vest over a normal red long sleeve shirt, black pants that were a size 60 waist, red boots that had seen better days, and finally my mask made of steel.
Most heroes wore them to protect their identity, old me was forced to, his agency flat out refused to hire me if I didn't have one.
'First chance I get, I'm dropping them and going solo'
I found my teeth grinding at the thought, and it seemed I had retained the anger issues old Damien had, since it made my blood boil that they had done that to Old Takashu, to me.
However, they were my only source of income at the moment, and if I marched up to them right now and quit, and especially with nothing going for me. I would have to either try to debut like Mt Lady did in canon and get a burst of popularity, or go underground.
I was six hundred pounds with my hero outfit on, stealthy wouldn't describe me even if you wrote it on my forehead in permanent marker.
The truth sucked.
"Here we go." I mumbled, seeing as this would be the first time I stepped out of my apartment not as Old Takashi or even as Damien Ramierez, but something—someone new, and someone who was going to change his current lot in life.
'Even if it kills me'
I opened the door, and though I was expecting a strange unfamiliar world, the last thing I expected to see was a familiar face.
"Hm?" The soft sung voice of a young girl entered my ears as she turned, blonde hair swishing to the left as purple irises looked at my chest, blinked once, and scanned up to meet mine.
I stood stalk still, not ever in my two lives expecting to see Mt Lady in the flesh, standing shorter than me, wearing a purple blouse and denim jeans that stopped at her ankles, something akin to vans turning to point at me as she completely faced me.
"Oh um, hey, you going on patrol?"
She seemed so casual, and I already knew it was me who was making this situation anything but normal, but it seemed I had gotten more Old Takashi than Damien when it came to social interaction.
A nod was all I could manage.
"Cool," she looked down at her smartphone. "Do you know where Kayama-sensei is? She said her place is on the fifth floor, but none of these doors have numbers."
I blinked once.
"Ah shit, I mean Midnight." Mt Lady, or whatever her actual name was stuck her tongue out and chuckled. "Just don't tell her I casually said her name, she is really big on her personal identity and stuff."
I blinked again.
The blonde seemed to realize I hadn't really said a word, looking up at me with those beautifully colored eyes in question.
Finally, the Damien side I still had took over, and I found I did actually know where Midnight lived. She was at the end of the hall, and I had only seen her twice as Old Takashi, but the hate for anyone pretty had made him angry and avoid her outright.
The first time had been a year ago on his second day of moving in. Midnight had passed him in the hall, a brisk hello and welcome thrown his way probably out of politeness.
Old Takashi just ignored her.
They never spoke to one another again, but as Midnight seemed hurt at the silence and walked away, he did take a moment to see her stop at her door and open it.
"Yeah, she should be the very last door on the left," I realized while I spoke that my voice sounded like a squeak, another way that people had always picked on me.
Thankfully, Mt Lady didn't care or notice, clasping her hands together in prayer and bowing slightly, "Thanks a million."
She turned and started walking, eyes now glued on her smartphone as she mumbled a few things pointed at Midnight about her being a bad person to have her internship with.
I watched her go, and a part of me wanted to continue to do so. She was the first canon character I met, and from what I knew of a casual watcher of the anime and having read the finished manga, she acted how she should, though she seemed younger.
'I think'
However, the tried and trusted thing called rationality told me staring at a girl with a metal mask that only had eye holes may be a bit creepy.
As a result, I stomached the fact I met Mt Lady, lived on the same floor as the Midnight, and shut my door and headed toward the elevator.
I reached for the button to call it up, but the image of my beady gray eyes, seemingly always sweat filled brown hair, and everything else that made me undesirable made me pause.
Without much hesitation, I changed direction and took the stairs.
I was more than out of breath when I stepped out of the brick and glass sixth floor apartment nestled in a row of others, the exertion having me leaning against the wall next to the entrance to gain my bearings.
'This isn't out of shape, I might genuinely keel over if I sprint a few feet.'
The first attribute point I got from the quest was going into endurance, that was for damn sure, and the next?
Charm, since I hoped that would help me not feel like a freak in front of every above average looking girl I met.
Also, speaking of different looks, around me on the streets of the city of Hoth—a star wars reference I was sure, but me not being a fan I wouldn't be able to tell— I saw a plethora of different looking people.
I saw a seven foot old lady that leisurely walked with a cane, gray hair and a shawl over her which was normal in of itself, but the rippling veins and muscles of a body builder was certainly not.
I took a moment to just look, every set of wings, colored skin from the rainbow, hammer for a head, and gorilla arms cementing I was definitely in a new world.
It was shocking at first, but I had twenty years of seeing such people to ease my surprise. Also, Takashi found kinship with people who had mutations that made them less than ideal, a sour memory that surfaced as I saw a guy with eyes literally where his ears should be.
I stopped staring a few minutes later, my feet taking the lead to guide me to The Majestic Agency, which had technically pushed someone to suicide in some way.
Not entirely their fault, but there was bad blood, and I expected a good amount of anger after my twenty minute walk had me standing in front of a two story building with an actual black magician's hat sitting on top of it.
Instead, bitter was all I felt, and probably mixed in with a healthy dose of depression.
I shrugged it off though, swallowed hard, and entered the building that would help towards a bright new future.
My true first step to changing my new life for the better.
The second step though?
Well, it had me exiting The Majestic Agency, holding a box full of the few things I had in the agency with a letter of termination thrown somewhere in there.
All of the overwhelming emotions I had at that moment coalesced into one word.
"Fuck."
The blue pop up screen didn't help much.
[
Quest -Clock In- completed.
Reward: 1 AP
]