Sero

The hum of the lecture hall usually lulled me into a state of focused concentration, but today, it was just a dull buzz in the background. First year of the hero course at U.A., and I was actually doing pretty well. I'd managed to keep up with the physical training, not to mention the mind-numbing quirk theory classes. Life was good, or so I thought. Then, everything went sideways.

It started with a villain attack—some low-level creep who thought he could make a splash by disrupting the campus. Usually, the hero students would've handled it with ease, but this guy had a bizarre quirk that sent out these shimmering, almost liquid-like projectiles. One of them caught me in the shoulder as I was trying to evacuate the lecture hall. I felt a brief, tingling sting, but nothing more. Even after the villain was apprehended, I checked myself over and found no injury. "Just a bit of a shock, I guess," I'd mumbled to Kirishima, who was more concerned for my wellbeing than I was. I went to bed that night, none the wiser about what was to come.

The next day dawned bright, and I woke up with that familiar, slightly sore, feeling in my muscles from training. I wasn't due in class until the following morning, so I enjoyed my normal routine; breakfast in the dorm hall, a bit of stretching, and then I settled down to review some notes. It was while I was halfway through a particularly dense lecture on quirk activation that I first noticed it. Or rather, her.

I glanced down at my hands, and I did a double take. My hands weren't my hands. They were slimmer, and the knuckles seemed smaller too. Then my gaze travelled up my arm, and my breath caught in my throat. The short sleeve of my t-shirt now hung loose, revealing the smooth curve of a shoulder that wasn't…mine.

Panic began to bubble in my chest. I rushed to the nearest mirror, heart pounding like a drum. My reflection stared back at me with wide, bewildered eyes. Eyes that were now framed by longer, darker lashes. My face was softer, the jawline less square. And there, right in the middle of my chest, were two… things that most certainly weren't there the day before.

I was a girl.

It was like diving into freezing water. A wave of disorientation washed over me, followed by a frantic, almost desperate need to understand. Had I been drugged? Was this a prank? I pinched my arm, hard, but nothing changed. There was no getting away from the fact; I, Sero Hanta, was now a girl.

I desperately needed to figure out what was going on, so I tried contacting Aizawa-sensei. But the voice that came out of my mouth was high and unfamiliar. I ended the call out of pure embarrassment, and instead texted him. As I waited, I paced the room, running my hands through my hair, which fell past my shoulders.

Aizawa-sensei arrived quickly, his expression a mask of stoic calm that couldn't quite hide the surprise in his eyes. Explaining the situation was humiliating, each word feeling like a confession to a crime I didn't commit. He listened, his gaze intense but surprisingly non-judgmental, and after my explanation, he was deep in thought for a while. He then surmised that the villain I'd encountered yesterday must have had a transformation quirk, one that was delayed in its full effect.

"We'll need to get you to Recovery Girl," Aizawa-sensei said, breaking the silence. "But for now… we need to deal with this."

"Deal with this? What do you mean???" I asked, my voice cracking.

"For your safety, we have to assume this isn't immediately reversible. You'll need to adjust until it is. We'll get some female clothing and other necessities, for now."

The days that followed were a bizarre blur of awkwardness and confusion. I had to learn to navigate everyday life in this new body. Clothes that had once been comfortable now felt wrong, and my hair kept getting in the way. Simple things like walking down a flight of stairs became a balancing act, and the way people reacted to me was unnerving.

The absolute low point had to be the moment I realized—with a cold, sickening lurch—that this whole situation was about to get infinitely worse.

The cramps started in the early hours of the morning. They were unfamiliar and relentless, making me curl into a fetal position, gasping. I had no idea what was happening. It took a frantic Google search on my phone to realize I wasn't dying, but experiencing something my male self had never had to deal with: my period.

It was a crushing moment. Not only was I trapped in a body that wasn't mine, but I was also dealing with something I had not even considered. Suddenly, I wasn't just a guy turned girl; I was a girl dealing with the monthly challenges that came with it. The shame I felt was overwhelming. I didn't want anyone to know; it felt like an intensely personal invasion.

I spent the rest of the day huddled in my room, trying to make sense of everything. I felt lost and isolated. My friends were supportive, but they couldn't truly understand. Kirishima offered to lend me some of his sister's clothes, while Mina tried to teach me how to braid my hair (with hilarious results). Even Bakugo, surprisingly, had been mostly silent and kept his usual abrasiveness to a minimum, although a weird look flashed across his face when he saw my 'new' hairstyle.

The first week was the worst. The physical discomfort was one thing, but the emotional turmoil was another beast entirely. I missed my own body, the way I moved, the familiar weight of myself. I missed being Sero, plain and simple. I even missed my tape quirk, which now felt utterly useless in this form. What good was tape now? Trying to use it with these awkward, new fingers was just a recipe for disaster.

During this time, I had a lot of time to think. The anger faded into a quiet despair. I was different now, whether I liked it or not. The only thing I could do was try to adapt. I spent hours trying to learn how to use my new body. I practiced walking without feeling like an octopus on stilts, and I even started experimenting with makeup, although I was still hopeless at it. I started to talk to the girls in class more openly, asking for advice and trying to understand their perspectives. They were surprisingly supportive, and I slowly began to feel a glimmer of acceptance, even if it wasn't for myself, but for the situation I was in.

Weeks stretched into a month, and still, there was no sign of my original body returning. I'd started to get used to being me, but still...her. The discomfort of my period had become a familiar, monthly annoyance, and I'd even managed to pull off a decent ponytail. When looking in the mirror, I saw a face that was getting more familiar, and the shock was slowly receding into the background. There were still moments when I felt like I was living someone else's life, but I was slowly learning to navigate this new reality.

The day the change finally reversed was a strange one. It was during hero training. I'd been in the middle of a drill, when my body suddenly felt like it was vibrating. Then with an odd, pop, I felt the shift. It was disorienting, like waking up from a vivid dream. My clothes felt loose, the weight of my body had been restored to what I remembered. My hands were back to being my own, my chest felt flat again. It was an odd feeling, almost like coming home.

I walked over to a reflective surface, and was greeted by that familiar face, my face. The face of Sero Hanta. I couldn't help the smile that stretched across my lips. I was me, again.

The experience changed me. It forced me to confront ideas about identity and gender that I had never considered. I gained a newfound respect for the women around me, for the challenges they face, and the strength it took to navigate them. I was still the same, but I was more aware, more empathetic. It was a strange, challenging chapter in my life that I was sure I wouldn't forget anytime soon. And it made me even more determined to become a hero, someone who could understand and help everyone, no matter what they faced. Because sometimes, being a hero wasn't about flashy powers; it was about understanding what it meant to walk in someone else's shoes, even if they were heels.