Chapter 6

The weeks following the villain's attacks went quickly. I was given a week off school to process the incident. I spent every day watching the clouds go buy and listening to the birds singing. I manifested a cushion to sit on so that the branches of my favourite tree weren't so uncomfortable. 

Mum recovered gradually. After a couple of days she was able to move around the house freely. Within the week she was back to her normal energetic self. 

The incident caused my parents to both make drastic changes to their lives. Mum cut back her hours at work, she said that it took almost losing me to realise how precious our time together as a family was. She said that she didn't want to waste that time taking calls and negotiating deals. Dad did the same, he handed over most of the day to day activities of running the company to a few of his trusted employees. 

They were less busy now. When it came time to pick me up from school mum wasn't on the phone anymore and dad wasn't so exhausted. I liked having them around more. 

The new rythm of our lives quickly became normal. Weeks turned into months and months turned into years. Before I knew it I was turning 13 years old. 

The incident had given me something I'd been missing. A reason, a goal to strive towards. I wanted to attend U.A and get a place on the hero course. That would be the first step on my journey to becoming a hero.

I practiced using my quirk in different ways, expanding the range of the things I could manifest. I needed to be flexible, versatile. 

The heroes I saw on TV all had their specialities. Some were good at search and rescue, others excelled in frontal combat. I watched as heroes with combat quirks stand by with their fists clenched while they waited for rescue heros to arrive. I wanted to be different, I wanted to be able to save anyone no matter what. 

I knew that aiming too high and spreading my focus too thin could waste my potential. But I wouldn't change my mind. 

'I would rather die with my dream intact then live with it in pieces.' I thought. 

The electric hero from two years ago. The haunted and despairing look in his eyes as he desperately tried to catch up to us still visited me in my dreams. His quirk was strong, he could move at incredible speeds.

After the accident I became a fan of his, he was a well-respected pro hero with the name Thunderbolt. I watched all his press interviews. In one of them he stood before the wreckage of a burning building. He wasn't smiling like he usually did or talking about the importance of justice and righteousness. He stood there, covered in scorch marks with dozens of wounds. He looked as if his soul had been sucked out from him. When asked questions he gave only short and robotic responses. 

The reporter went on to explain that there were several children that the professional hero had been unable to save. He was fast. But not fast enough. 

I knew that I couldn't save everyone. Even when All Might or Endevaour were present, the most powerful heroes in the country, maybe even the world, civillian deaths still happened. But I had to try. I had to try to protect as many people as I could. 

"Jake are you there?" Mum called out. 

I jumped down from branch to branch. Agility and balance were essential qualities for heroism. 

"I'm here mum." I responded. I walked towards her carrying a small boquet of flowers. They weren't manifested objects, they were real flowers. I had picked them to give to her. 

We had moved house last year. It had taken me a while to persuade my parents, but they eventually accepted. I had said my final goodbye to my favourite tree. Fortunately I could still manifest it and sit in its branches anytime I wanted. 

Our new house was close to the mountains. We had no neighbours for dozens of miles. It was the perfect environment to train my quirk. In the secluded woodlands and valleys around our house I could finally push myself to my limits.

I trained every day, manifesting larger and more intricate creations. I practiced manifesting multiple things at the same time. Learning to split my focus between them was harder than anything I'd ever done before. Progress was slow, but I kept going. I was learning, day by day my skills were improving. Cumulative effort was the only way to get stronger. 

"It's time for dinner." Mum said warmly. She entwined her arm in mine and we walked side by side. I was taller than her now, she couldn't catch up to me to tickle me anymore. 

Dad was barbecuing in the open air. He grinned and waved at us, "There you are Jake! How was the training, think you might be able to stand a chance against your old man yet?" 

His bravado always left me speechless. He was stronger than an ordinary person sure but he didn't stand a chance against a decent quirk user. Even though I was only 13 I was leagues above most quirk users, I could probably take on some weaker pro heroes. 

Mum voiced what I was thinking without mercy, "Alfie you're always so full of hot air! Jake could slap you into the ground before you even had the chance to blink! Just be proud that you've helped bring such an amazing future hero into the world." 

Her response left him looking slightly sullen. He turned over a kebab and mumbled to himself in a melancholy voice, "It used to be me who was the strong one." 

Mum sighed and wrapped her arms around his waist, "You're still my big strong man darling. How about later you and me-" 

"Gross!" I shouted. A pair of industrial duty ear mufflers manifested on my head. 

Mum giggled and whispered something in dad's ear. He immediately began to blush. He then laughed villanously. I didn't want to know what words had been said. 

"Are you done now?" I asked, refusing to disperse the mufflers until I knew that the coast was clear. 

I cursed my stupidity for thinking that they'd give up so easily. I hated my lip-reading skills as I saw dad say, "Oh we're just getting started kiddo." 

Sometimes they were more like teenagers than grown ups. Perhaps teenagers was being too kind, pre-schoolers might have been more accurate. 

I manifested an pigeon on both of their heads. The conjured birds immediately set about pecking their ears and necks. I smiled as the two of them ran off in different directions shouting for me to get rid of the birds. 

'Shouldn't have started a fight you can't win.' 

We sat down for dinner a half hour later. The table was slightly wonky since dad had made it himself, but it had a homely charm that made everything taste nicer. 

"Riku's mom called, she said he's going to be applying for the business studies course at U.A in a couple years time!" Mum announced. The news made me pause mid-bite in my burger. 

'I wonder how many years we'll have spent eating lunch together.' I smiled thinking about all the good times me and Riku had had together. A disproportionate amount of them involved us spending our pocket money on various food stalls. He liked to eat and so did I, we were a good duo. 

'If he gets a job at the same hero agency as me, we might still be eating lunch together in our twenties!' I realised. I didn't mind the idea. 

After dinner I pulled out my phone and typed out a message to Riku. 

"Hey man! My mum says that you're applying for U.A too! If you need a job I can probably let you have some of my crumbs when I'm a famous hero!" I smiled and hit send. 

His reply came almost immediately. 

"You cocky bastard! Just you wait, you'll be the one begging for me to be your agent after you go bankrupt on takoyaki!" 

We'd both changed a lot since we first met. We weren't little kids anymore, we were teenagers figuring out our places in the world. I still loved quiet spaces and Riku was still shy when meeting new people. But now I'd come to like hanging out with people my age almost as much as listening to birdsong. Riku had come out of his shell a lot and even ended up in a relationship! His girlfriend also had animal features, her ears were like that of a leopards. He confessed to finding them incredibly beautiful, something about the prey-predator dynamic which made me shove him into a bush and run off yelling at him to behave himself. 

"I'm going to train!" I shouted up from the first floor. I didn't stick around to hear my parents reply, judging from their giggliness they were probably planning something I didn't want to be around for. The house was pretty much their domain.

I'd started sleeping outside last year, listening to all the creatures moving about as I drifted off to sleep made me feel strangely peaceful. I slept in manifested hammocks or treehouses, it was excellent practice for maintaining my manifestations subconciously rather than requiring active concentration. I got the hang of it pretty quickly, it was like training your bladder to hold your pee, eventually you did it without even thinking. 

I walked down the steps to our house and into the forest. The light faded gradually as the branches above became more densely packed and blocked the sunshine from reaching the ground. 

The leaves were soft beneath my feet. The dappled light made the world look even more beautiful. I stretched out my right arm. The barrier between my imagination and reality shattered almost instantly and a magnificent chestnut brown horse appeared at my side. I threw my leg over it's back and seated myself securely with my legs hugging its sides. 

"Ride!" 

The horse charged forwards. The wind howled in my ears as we raced through the forests. The chestnut brown horse moved like lightning. I had never measured his speed but I knew that he was several times faster than any natural born creature could be.

This was one of the new applications of my quirk that I had developed, I called it reinforcement. I could strengthen the essence of the thing I manifested, allowing it to exceed its own limits. Reinforcing a manifestation wasn't easy, I could currently only do it for a couple of things. I had to train both the mainfestation and the reinforcement until it became like muscle memory. Otherwise it would take me as long as a minute to bring my thought to life. No enemy would give me a minute to stand still and close my eyes, in order for my manifestations to be functional they had to be instantaneous. 

I'd worked on improving various areas of my quirk. A few years ago I'd only been able to manifest exactly what I saw. So if I saw a pigeon drinking water I could only manifest a pigeon drinking water, I couldn't make it fly around or land on someone's head. Through countless hours of practice I had learned how to transform my manifestations from static constructs into fluid and changeable things. 

'I can't wait to get to U.A, imagine all the amazing quirks I'll be able to see!' I thought. 

My quirk was incredible. Its potential was so frightening that I feared what could've happened if it was wielded by someone for evil rather than good. 

I had never thought that I'd be able to manifest someone else's quirk. I had discovered this broken ability entirely by accident. One evening I was watching TV in the living room while my mother washed the dishes. She often used her quirk while washing up as the bubbles from the washing up liquid reminded her of the ones produced by her quirk.

Curiosity had struck me. I wondered whether I could use my quirk to make bubbles like she did. I never thought that it would actually work. But somehow, it did.

It wasn't easy, the bubbles I created were barely the size of a pea. She could create one as large as a person without breaking a sweat. But that didn't matter. I had manifested a quirk. Not just the bubbles that she created, I had manifested her quirk itself.

The manifested quirk wasn't made of energy like my constructions. It didn't dissapear when I stopped concentrating. It was there in my mind, a completely stable construct, available for me to use at any moment.

I hadn't told my parents about my discovery. It was my secret. I had manifested a couple of other quirks since then. I wanted to test the limits of my quirk copying. So far I hadn't discovered any. I could manifest as many quirks as I liked, all I had to do was observe the holder using it. For mutant type quirk users I only had to look at them, I didn't need to see their quirk being used destructively. 

The quirks I manifested were like seeds. With practice I could water them and allow them to grow stronger. During the last year I had occasionally practiced mum's quirk before bed. With minimal effort I had gone from being able to create bubbles the size of rice grains to bubbles the size of an apple. I suspected that my rapid progress was due to my natural compatability with her quirk. After all I shared half of her DNA. 

The main focus of my secondary quirk development was developing my father's quirk - Tiger Strength. For nearly a month I ate like my life depended on it. I snuck out to the nearest supermarkets and bought sandwiches by the dozen. The calories were all converted into stronger and denser muscle. After a month of ravenous eating I succesfully turned his quirk seed into a mighty oak. I was no longer just strong for my age, I was supernaturally strong. 

For many heroes their bodies were their weaknesses. Endeveaour could torch a city block in minutes, but he would still bleed if someone shot him with a gun before he had time to summon his scorching flames. 

In order to be a hero I had to have a strong body and mind. Quirks that strengthened the holder's body were one of the most common types. The majority had harsh limitations like a temporary duration or a weakened period after use, but there were still a good amount that didn't have any negative side effects.

For most quirks my incompatability with them meant that training them would be abysmally inefficent, the time would be far better spent practicing my own natural quirk. 

But thanks to my amazing dad, I had an extremely high natural affinity with strengthening quirks. I manifested and developed every one I came across. Over the last three years my physical strength had become a formiddable force in it's own right. Even without my quirk I could rely on sheer speed and power to take down any regular villain. 

'I'll use this power to save everyone I can.' I thought. It was my duty and my vow. I had a quirk with the power to change the world. It was my responsibility to use it for the good of society.