Fanfic #51 The Harbinger by ProfesssorPedant (My Hero Academia OC)

I finally have a fanfic from webnovel! This fanfic has an oc mc that has his own interesting history in the my hero academia world. I think it has an interesting beginning so far and it has a lot of interesting plot lines to explore. It also focuses on a character I haven't see a lot from, Aoyama.

Synopsis: Whenever anyone asked Jack about his past, or his family, or even his quirk he was forced to say, "It's complicated." He expected attending the Business course at UA to be much simpler. But when a seat in Class 1-A opened, and Jack was invited to try for it, more complications occurred. New enemies and old problems were compounding at an alarming rate. And what exactly did the Church of the Singularity want from him? Story follows canon while concentrating on tangential events.

words: 42k

Rated: T

https://m.webnovel.com/book/the-harbinger-%5Bmy-hero-academia-oc%5D_19906276006917405

Here's the first chapter:

"Why do you look so nervous?" Yuga asked Jack. "People don't get killed in the Business course – or worse, expelled. I have Aizawa-sensei for homeroom. I read online that he actually expelled his entire class last year. I'm going to die!"

"Don't be so melodramatic," Jack replied, turning from the giant H structure that dominated the entrance to UA High School. "You did well in the Entrance Exam. You have a good quirk and you've been practicing. Why wouldn't you do well in class?"

"Maybe they might not like the French. Not everyone has such exquisite taste as mine." The blond boy brushed his long locks back, popped a hip, and struck a pose.

"Is it homophobic if I call you a Drama Queen?" Jack shot back.

"I'd say so. It might be accurate, but it's definitely homophobic."

"Thanks for letting me know. I'll be sure not to say that." Jack smiled.

"See that you don't."

"Ready to go in now?" Jack asked more seriously, throwing his arm around the shorter boy's shoulder.

"Cold hands, mon ami," Yuga shivered when Jack's golden metallic skin brushed his cheek.

"My hands are not cold. Just because they're metal …"

"It's my delicate skin, and I say they're cold."

Jack momentarily considered raising the temperature of his hand fifty degrees or so, then seeing what his semi-step-brother thought, but decided against it. No need to risk hurting him in response to a simple tease. "Come on. We don't want to be late on the first day."

"Jacque, why are we doing this to ourselves?" Yuga asked, one hand clutching the other boy's jacket, his low voice almost cracking. "Kagayaku-san pushed my parents into making me try out for the Hero course at UA in some sick scheme to prove that I'm worthy of his blood. I don't really know that I even want to be here and certainly not just to make him proud. And you … you're doing the Business course when you're obviously more suited to the Hero course, all in hopes of gaining the old man's attention because you're following in his soulless corporate footsteps. We should both just leave. If we go away, he'll be out of our lives and we can …"

"We can what?" Jack pressed; his tone skeptical.

"I don't know," Yuga admitted. "Do something else?"

"We're fifteen in a world where teenagers don't have a lot of choices other than following the straight and narrow or embracing a life of delinquency and dissolution. I really don't see gang tats working for you, or me for that matter." Jack shrugged, his metallic skin glinting gold in the morning sun. "This is where we are. We should make the best of it."

"Can we at least look for better options?" Yuga pleaded.

"Always," Jack agreed.

Once inside, Jack accompanied the blond boy to the giant door of room 1-A. "Good luck," he said.

"You too." Yuga paused before opening the door. He took a deep breath then slammed the door open, striking a flamboyant pose "Bonjour! Je suis là!"

Jack shook his head and turned down the hall towards Class 1-J. He opened the door to find the room almost full. He took the last seat. Just as the bell rang a large ursine boy half covered in white fur rushed through the door, slamming it behind him. He glanced around then started growling.

"Take your seat please. It is time to start class," commanded Morita-sensei.

The large boy just glared at her.

"If you don't take a seat, I'll have to ask you to leave. It would be a shame to make such an effort to come all the way to Japan for your schooling, only to be expelled on the first day, eh Motin-kun?" The teacher's tone was flat, almost inflectionless. Jack wondered if she had a particular dislike for this boy or if she were just generally cold.

"You have five minutes," she finished, then sat in her seat and watched.

The boy quickly scanned the other students. He rushed towards the smallest boy in the room and grabbed his collar to jerk him out of his seat.

"Hostile takeovers are not allowed," the teacher announced. "They will get you expelled too."

Motin snarled at the teacher, displaying his prodigious dentition. Jack readied himself to defend her. She looked unimpressed; though the gold-skinned boy noticed she had one hand partially hidden under her desk. The ursine turned back to the small boy and snapped out in fluent but accented Japanese, "I will give you ¥100,000 for your seat."

"Sensei, what happens if I don't have a seat when class starts?" the boy asked.

"Expelled," she replied.

"I'm sorry. My place at UA is worth more to me than ¥100,000." I could see the smaller boy was nervous.

"¥1,000,000!" Motin raised.

The boy just shook his head.

Rather than risking the ursine losing control of his obvious temper Jack interrupted, "I'll take that offer."

Motin whirled to face him then rushed to close the distance. "You will?"

Jack stood and pulled out his phone, keying open the banking app. "Send it here." Motin quickly complied, then sat in the vacant seat.

Jack put his hand on the back of the chair. Tapping into his Quirk he absorbed a small portion of the light that filled the room. Using the chair as a model he quickly converted the photons into matter in the form of an exact duplicate of the chair. The duplicate appeared in his other hand. He carried the newly created chair to the lone empty desk and seated himself behind it.

"Very good," Morita-sensei began. "This is the Management Course. At its most basic, in the next three years you will learn how to recognize a need or an opportunity, how to come up with solutions, how to select and implement the correct solution, and how to get paid for doing all this."

Her tone was quiet, yet her presentation style and personal presence commanded the attention of the class. Everyone was listening to her raptly. "This morning's exercise was a very simple example. It touched on several basic concepts we will be exploring in your various business classes – scarcity, supply and demand, risk and reward, cost and benefit, and the concept of capability. Ando-kun, why did you refuse Motin-kun's initial offer?"

The small boy nervously replied, "UA is worth a lot more to my future than he was offering."

"Exactly. The benefit was not worth the cost." She smiled at Ando and he almost melted. Jack wondered how she did that. Morita-sensei was a somewhat attractive woman in her thirties or forties, easily old enough to be their mother. There was nothing obvious in her appearance that justified the class reacting like she was Midnight or All Might. And the effect was not confined to just the boys. Everyone was hanging on her words.

"Kagayaku-kun," she turned her attention to Jack. "Was the million yen worth loosing your place at UA? It's a lot of money. And there are other schools. Is that why you accepted the deal?"

"I accepted it for three reasons, none of which involved leaving UA," I replied.

"Are you willing to share your reasons?" she inquired, then expanded her focus to the whole class. "A business leader's motivations and strategic considerations can both be very valuable intelligence to rivals. Deciding to reveal them, or not, should not be done lightly. Secrets are a part of doing business."

"First, I wanted to take Motin-kun's attention from Ando-kun. There didn't appear to be a way to reach a win-win solution between them. Secondly, I knew I was capable of producing my own chair, thereby circumventing the scarcity issue. Finally, I set my bank app to refuse the transfer, so I wasn't depriving Motin-san of his money without delivering some real value in return. That's not the sort of businessman I wish to become."

"Какого черта" Motin exclaimed. Jack smiled. Russian was one of the four main languages used in the lab in which he had been enslaved for most of his childhood. He was fluent in all four, especially the curses.

"With such an avowed motivation, how would you expect Kagayaku-kun to reply to a suggestion to offer a Hero that is known to be having financial difficulties a lower salary on hiring to an agency that an equivalent hero that is thought to be financially sound?" The teacher opened the question to the class.

"Saving money is a good thing for the agency if you can get the same hero," one girl offered somewhat tentatively. The teacher nodded then pointed to another student.

"While the financial savings might be good for the agency, it sounds like Kagayaku-kun might prioritize other consideration over the difference in money. Maybe employee satisfaction or agency public reputation." This from a girl with long deep purple hair and pointed ears.

"And if you were the Hero's agent, how would you advise him knowing Kagayaku-kun's priorities?"

"Hold out for the big bucks!" The blond boy exclaimed in a mix of Japanese and English, doing a little shimmy in his seat while pushing both hands palm up from the shoulders. Several students laughed.

Morita-sensei smiled and turned to Motin. "You tried strong arm tactics, and you tried purchasing the seat, opening negotiations on price. What else might you have been able to do?"

The Russian looked either stubborn or confused. He offered no answer.

"Let's not restrict this to Motin-kun," the teacher continued. "Who else has a possible solution for the given problem? Think in terms of real-world business solutions. Kagayaku-kun chose a production solution, producing a new seat to meet the need."

"Importing?" a tall boy with moose antlers suggested. "Bring in a chair from another room?"

"Very good. Bringing resources and materials when they are not available locally." Morita-sensei smiled. "I was a little disappointed no one noticed the chair sitting in the stairway at the end of the hall. What else?"

"My seat is larger than the others," a girl with glowing violet eyes said. "I could share it."

"Timeshare, job share, even just renting extra space are all possible strategies. Anything else?"

The discussion lasted until the bell rang.

"Good! Everything is a potential business opportunity, you just have to keep your eyes, and more importantly, your mind open to the possibilities." Morita-sensei finished with a clap. "Now we will go to the auditorium for the Opening Ceremony. After that you'll be free for the rest of the day. Regular classes start tomorrow. Now form two lines and follow me."

As one might expect the Opening Ceremony was dull, once the novelty of being in the same room as so many Pro Heroes wore off. It wasn't like they were fighting or rescuing people while sitting quietly on stage behind the Principal. After the third speaker, Jack's attention started to wander. As it so often did, he was reliving the time soon after he had arrived in this continuum.

Jack was reminded why it is almost always a mistake to listen invisibly while people talk about you – very seldom will you enjoy what they have to say.

"Even if he is what he claims to be, I see no reason for us to take him into our home. A great-grandchild, if he is to be believed, is barely a relative. Less than one-eighth blood in common. Third degree consanguinity. He's little better than a random person off the street." The man ranting was Kagayaku Haruki – patriarch of the Kagayaku family, founder and chief executive officer of Radiant Innovations, and apparently Jack's great-grandfather.

"Nothing can make you take him in, even if you believe his ridiculous story." This was said by Okubo Tomo, Kagayaku-san's Senior Executive Associate. He was a quiet, slightly menacing man who carried out Kagayaku's confidential business and occasionally acted as his hammer when some nail was sticking out too far. He resided in a small apartment on the Estate to be available at all hours.

"If it is true, that he was sent back almost a hundred years, if he is a continuation of your line, you may want to consider that he represents a quirk several generations closer to the singularity. That may have value to your plans." Kami Kazue was the Executive Assistant to the CEO. Her greatest attributes were her laser-sharp intellect and her loyalty to both her boss and to his beliefs in Quirk Marriages as harbingers of the coming Quirk Singularity. Her exquisite competence had been honed at the UA Business program and the top administrative university. That she was exceptionally attractive was almost an afterthought.

"There is no known quirk that allows for time travel," Okubo stated. "There is no reason to believe that this person has done the impossible."

"No such quirk is known at this time," Kami stressed. "It does not necessarily follow that such a quirk may not be appear over the coming decades. And as I understand it the young boy claims that it was some unknown interaction between two or more quirks and several devices built to delve into quantum effects. That is not the same as a reliable quirk able to initiate time travel."

"Hrm," Okubo grunted noncommittally.

"Saiko, no doubt influenced by that stinking gaijin David Shield, is convinced his story is true. Something about tachyon signatures and chronon decay or some such. You know I pay more attention to the costs and value of her technologies than the science behind them. But I know better than to argue her science is incorrect." He took a deep draught of whatever liquor he was drinking then slammed the cup on the polished wood. "She is determined that he is our blood and we are responsible for him now. She's already completed the adoption paperwork. I could protest, but I cannot afford to alienate her like that."

"How could my own grandson mix his blood with an American!" he bellowed. "Bad enough to breed with Koreans, or worse Europeans, but at least they have some history behind them. They know their heritage, lacking though that might be. But Americans are just mongrels, mixing lineages with no thought to consequences. And this boy brings that polluted taint into my family." He hung his head and gulped a second drink.

Jack floated back through the roof, still unseen. This was not how he had hoped to meet his father's grandfather.

That was almost five years ago. Jack was certain he hadn't understood most of the subtleties of the conversation when he first heard it. He was only ten at the time. But, unlike most ten-year-olds, the younger him had been around unhappy adults for most of his life. So, the unwelcoming attitude towards him was at least familiar, if not the specific complaints.

Over the last five years nothing much had changed. At least not at the root. Kagayaku-san – the old man never let Jack call him anything more familiar – had agreed to the orphan moving onto the estate. While his great grandfather never made Jack welcome, he had never tried to remove the boy, not seriously at least.

Kagayaku Saiko, Kagayaku-san's wife had adopted Jack, though her husband never finalized his paperwork. Her lawyers were good enough to get the adoption processed without his signature. Ōbāchan, or Oba as she preferred to be called, was the primary source of Radiant Innovations income. She was considered one of the greatest inventors of the age. Her products sold to heroes, military, police, and general consumers alike. Her husband wasn't going to risk angering the golden goose.

Yuga was right, Jack had decided on the UA Business course because that was where Kagayaku-san had matriculated back in the days before electricity, and he hoped the old man would feel some fondness for his alma mater and might spread some of those good feelings to his least wanted house guest. Oba had gone to UA also, the Support course, but that was some years later. Jack didn't think she cared one way or another where he went, though she thought his quirk would have made him a shoo-in for the Hero course.

After the Ceremony ended, Jack waited for Yuga at the school gate. The blond boy was walking with a girl with pink skin and hair and a pair of crumpled horns. From their body language Jack suspected she was teasing Yugo, but he was returning the banter.

"Jacque, mon pseudo-frère," Yuga ran to him and grasped Jack's hand to his heart. "I cannot tell you the horrors I have been forced to endure this awful day. Yet, in a testament to my great fortitude, I have survived and overcome. But I am much too modest to continue about me. How was your morning?"

The girl was giggling behind her hand while watching the spectacle Yuga was making of us both. I gently wrenched my hand free and replied nonchalantly. "I was offered a million yen to give up my place at UA and was almost expelled for my response."

"What!" he cried.

"But you haven't introduced me to your friend," I said, switching gears and ignoring his turmoil.

"Hi! I'm Ashido Mina from Class 1-A. Did you really almost get expelled? Our mean teacher threatened us with expulsion too, or at least the person that came in last in his stupid quirk tests. But he didn't expel anyone, said it was just a rationalized diversion or something. That wasn't nice, was it?"

Jack gaped at the speed at which she babbled. After she looked at him for several seconds, obviously expecting an answer, he finally ventured, "Yes?"

"Me too." She nodded then waved at them both as she sort of danced down the street towards the station. Yuga broke out laughing at Jack's befuddled expression.

"Come on, Jacque," Yuga pulled me after the girl. "We are not expected back at the Estate until dinner. I suggest we take advantage of the opportunity to Explore! Ashido-chan told me about someplace called the Kiyashi Ward Shopping Mall. I think we can spend a few fruitful hours there before returning to our durance vile."

Jack shrugged and with a not inconsiderable amount of dread followed along.