Chapter 2: Settling In

~o~ TWO YEARS AND FOUR MONTHS OLD ~o~

Sekai wanted to be a hero.

He was by no means alone in this desire, as he found out after attending his first day of daycare. All of the toddlers there wanted to be a hero just as badly. It was all anyone ever talked about, not that anyone could even really say much in the first place. And anyway, it would at least occupy him so he wouldn't think about...

He shuddered and forced that thought out of his mind. He would NOT think about that.

Even so, just because all the other students also shared this goal, that didn't mean his dream wasn't his. He wanted to be a hero and save people like the impressive figures he'd seen on TV. And unlike his classmates, including Ibara, Sekai had a plan.

He was going to get into U.A. and become the number one hero, even if he had to fight Midoriya "The Cinnamon Roll" Izuku to do so. And he was gonna start by saving Kamino Ward from All for One's future devastating attacks.

The problem was… he had no idea what kind of hero he wanted to be.

What even was a smoke Quirk good for, exactly? Well, evading attacks, obviously, if he could train himself enough to be able to turn large portions of his body into smoke. So far—and he had been experimenting—he'd only been able to transform small parts of himself. The more he trained with it, the more of himself he was able to transform, but it was a gradual increase. Unfortunately, there wasn't much about dodging things that would help with heroism.

He'd also discovered something else about his Quirk.

It had a time limit of thirty seconds, and if he surpassed that time limit, he'd start to choke on smoke that gathered in his lungs. (It didn't seem to do any harm to him other than momentarily make him unable to breathe, luckily, but the first time had still scared him badly.)

Sekai had brought it up with his father. "Daddy," he asked Irori with his best puppy-dog eyes, "why can't I use my Quirk a lot?"

Irori smiled, his boxy and smooth face making him look rugged and handsome. "Don't worry about it, rascal." Rascal was his father's pet name for him, probably because he was constantly in poke wars with Ibara. "I couldn't use my Quirk a lot when I was a kid, either. It just takes practice, and in a few years, you'll be able to turn your whole body into smoke!"

Sekai's eyes widened. "Really, Daddy?" he asked excitedly. That sounded awesome! He hadn't achieved more than a full finger so far!

The bulky man laughed and ruffled his son's blue hair. "Really, Sekai. Oh, by the way, try taking a BIIIIIG breath before you use it!"

A big breath? Sekai blinked and frowned in confusion. What did that have to do with anything?

Oh well, Irori had had the Quirk longer than Sekai. He had to know something about it.

Later that day, Sekai sucked in a huge gulp of air, filling his lungs up so that his tummy popped out, and was shocked to find that he could now transform his whole arm! After some experiments, he found out that the amount of himself that changed depended on how much air he had in his lungs. His time limit remained the same regardless of how deep a breath he took, however.

Grinning, the reincarnated boy stared at his hands excitedly.

He was going to spend as much time as possible working with these powers.

If anything, it could at least distract him from what he kept thinking about when he was alone.

~o~ THREE YEARS OLD ~o~

Sekai's Quirk training was going pretty well, he thought. His other areas of training were, too, i.e. studying for his future U.A. entrance exam (albeit less so than the others) and training in martial arts.

Every day, he spent at least an hour working on how much and how long he could use his Quirk for. He'd managed to increase his time limit by two seconds. It was incredibly slow progress, but he found that the more he went over his time limit, the more he could resist the onset of smoke inhalation. Also, the more he pushed the use of his Quirk, the more of his body he was able to transform.

He'd also gotten some kids' books from the library about heroes and heroism. Since he'd finally learned Japanese decently well, he was at least able to read this much. He learned about some popular heroes from the country's past, as well as some more worldwide heroes. It wasn't very extensive other than pieces of information like that (it was meant for kids, after all), but it was better than nothing.

More helpful than his studies was his martial arts training. His body hadn't been incredibly naturally strong, much like his old one, and it was annoying going to classes every day. But it definitely paid off. He found himself slowly growing more and more limber, as well as his muscles becoming a little more defined. It wasn't anything like what he'd get if he'd chosen to lift weights (fuck that noise), but it was at least something! And the best part was that it gave him self-defense skills. He quickly became the best in his class, and although that was definitely because his older brain was more able to focus and comprehend larger amounts of more complicated instructions than his classmates', he still felt much more confident in his ability to fight than before he'd started.

It wasn't a lot still, but it was tons better than nothing.

Maybe this time around, he could actually protect his life when faced with danger instead of dying.

~o~ THREE YEARS AND ONE-AND-A-HALF MONTHS OLD ~o~

"Man, fuck that Professor James. Did you hear what he said to that poor girl, Evan? It's not like it was her fault she was late, either. Her friend told me later that she got into some kind of traffic trouble that was the other dude's fault and they both got pulled over by the cop who happened to be there."

Evan Gamble, five-foot-eleven with fair skin and creamy chocolate hair, turned from his homework to wince at his friend. "Yeesh, that sucks. I'd always thought the dude was a good teacher, too. Guess some people are just really shitty, huh?"

"I guess so," his buddy grumbled. He ran a hand through thick red hair. "This backwater town seems like it's getting more and more fucked up daily, you know? Ol' Dave from sixth grade—you remember, him, right? The little Jehovah's Witness kid who always quoted scripture at everyone like some kind of mini apologist? Well, he goes to this damned college now, too, and is actually atheist, believe it or not, and we were talking about the whole God thing a while back. But anyway, so he texts me the other day, and what does he say? He says that he heard some guy ranting about shooting up this place!"

"What!?" the brunette boy stood up straight in his seat in the student commons center of his local college. "Did he call the cops? Tell me he did, Josh."

Josh snorted. "You think Davey has the guts to call the cops on someone? No way, man, that kid has less balls than a Flat Earth convention. He hasn't even told his mom and pop he doesn't believe in their magical sky daddy. Besides, the dude he was talking about doesn't seem like the kind of guy you'd expect to mow down a uni. I took a look at his Facebook (it's open to the public) and that boi is skuh-weeky clean. Doesn't even have a hunting pic on it."

Evan stared, though a little less concerned than he had been earlier. "Still, school shootings aren't a fucking joke, dude. Somebody should definitely say something."

Josh shrugged and munched on a Subway sub. It was his favorite kinda club, add bacon, stacked with lettuce, cucumbers, onions, and vinaigrette. Evan called it rabbit's food. "Whatever, dude," he groaned with a mouthful of lettuce. "Something you've gotta learn about this here neck o' the woods—people here talk shit and are shitty, but are also dweebs who wouldn't know how to punch a hole through any-fuckin'-thing. Ain't nothing's gonna happen, trust me."

Evan bit his lip but didn't bother to point out that Josh was hardly the kind of fellow who one should trust on predictions. He'd once claimed that he was sure their freshman science teacher was Q. And that their school nurse had been The Doctor. And he hadn't been joking, either.

Evan only really hung out with Josh because he was the kind of dumbass who you knew would give you endless amounts of laughter. And because they were both major nerds, but that was a bit embarrassing so. Yeah.

"Whatever you say, moron," he decided at last, rolling his eyes and shoving Josh's shoulder hard enough that the redhead almost fell out of his chair.

Josh yelped in surprise, choked on his sub for a nanosecond, then smirked evilly at him. "Oh, you wanna go that route, eh? Eh? You don't know what you're messing with!" Josh shoved him back harder, causing Evan to actually topple to the floor. Josh blinked, seeming mildly surprised by his own strength. "Oh shit. Sorry dude."

The brown-haired English major stared at him as he scrambled to his feet. "This. Means. War."

The other students in the student commons center suddenly found a great source of amusement to distract themselves from the crushing amount of essays their professors had assigned them.

A lightning bolt from an outside storm ripped the air asunder outside Sekai's apartment, startling him awake.

His eyes felt strangely wet, as though the rain from outside also ran down his cheeks.

~o~ THREE YEARS AND THREE MONTHS OLD ~o~

Sekai trained harder.

And harder.

And harder.

He ran outside up and down the sidewalk under the guise of playing. He studied Japanese until his brain felt numb so that he could fully get on the level of the other kids. He punched the red punching bag his mom, who had been much more distant around him lately for some reason, had gotten him for Christmas until his knuckles burned red.

His breath came in short, shaky pants as his worn-out fists pounded into the bag, which dangled from the ceiling on a chain. Metallic rattling filled Sekai's ears as the bag shook with force that should not have been coming out of his barely-not-a-toddler fists.

His growing muscles ached. His legs felt weak and trembly.

Tears built up in the back of his eyes, tears he struggled to not let anyone see when he was around other people. Especially not his parents.

They're not my actual parents. No matter how much I try and think of them, they're not—

They're my parents, they gave me new life when mine ran out, they gave me a home and food and clothes and love and—

But they're Sekai's, not YOURS. You left your parents behind—

I AM SEKAI—

An unfettered howl tore out of Sekai's throat and he pulled back his fists, launching a terrible kick at the poor, innocent punching bag. Pain shot through his toes, which had connected with the bag instead of his foot, and he whimpered, stumbling back and falling on his ass due to his own imbalance.

He sat there panting, nursing his injured knuckles.

He'd tried to forget about it.

Goddammit, he'd tried to forget.

But he just… couldn't… get it out of his mind! No matter how hard he tried to live in the present, pretend to be Sekai, he couldn't help but remember. Remember Josh. Remember his parents. Remember Foreign Exchange. Remember writing and playing video games into the dead of the night, laughing carefree and unaware of what would come.

And then that day…

Stop it stop it stop it! Sekai begged himself, feeling sick and tired. He curled up into a ball and tried to hide from his memories. I don't want to remember! I don't I don't I don't—

A gentle hand touched his shoulder. "Kaikun?"

"...Go 'way, Ibachan," he croaked. He didn't look up from his lap.

"Are you okay?" His cousin sounded worried. He felt even worse. God, he was such a mess, now he was even making his little cousin (Sekai's little cousin) worry about him.

"'M fine," he mumbled ashamedly. "Why are you here?"

He could feel Ibara's blush radiating even without looking. "I wanted to talk with you. You look lonely and I'm your friend. And my mom said that Jesus said to always make people happy."

He frowned bitterly into his lap. "Jesus said that, huh?" he mumbled in English. Yeah, right. He'd stopped believing after getting out of high school, and dying hadn't exactly convinced him of the Great Lord Above's existence.

"Yeah!" Ibara chirped, obviously pleased to latch onto a subject she felt happy with. "Jesus is awesome! Mom says he was the first hero! We go to… to… to this real big building and learn about him a lot! Do you and your mommy and your daddy do that too?"

He slowly lifted his head up and turned to look at her. The vine-haired girl's eyes were shining with interest and excitement, and Sekai smiled to himself. Man, it was like looking at a Horikoshi child sketch come to life—way too cute. "My mommy does," he answered softly, blinking away the salty water clinging to the bottom of his eyes. "My daddy and I don't. My daddy said…" He searched for the Japanese name for several seconds. "...God isn't real. They fought a lot after that."

Ibara looked horrified, like someone had just told her the world was about to end. "Whaaaaat?" she gasped, eyes wide as dinner plates. "Why did he say that!?" She leaned forward, desperate to know why Irori didn't believe. "Why why why?"

"I don't know," Sekai said, completely truthfully. "He started saying a bunch of big words I didn't understand. It was confusing."

"Hrmmmmm." Ibara crossed her arms and hummed suspiciously. She frowned deeply. "Well that's just mean!"

Sekai blinked. "Huh?"

"Saying someone isn't real is just mean!" Ibara said, nodding firmly and pouting. She pointed sharply at him. "Do you think he's real, Kaikun?"

Sekai stared. "I said I don't know."

"WHAAAAAAAAT!?" The poor vine-haired girl's eyes bulged out. "KAIKUN! Why why why why why!?"

He couldn't help it. Despite everything, a smile spread up his lips at the poor girl's crestfallen questioning, and he giggled, then burst into laughter. Ibara startled, then straightened up and pouted again. "Why are you laughing at me?"

Sekai smirked and booped her in the forehead. "Because you're funny."

"I'm not!" Ibara insisted. "I'm serious!" And Sekai descended into a fit of laughter again, much to his cousin's chagrin. She hummed with displeasure, but then paused and smiled. "You don't look lonely now!"

The suddenness of the statement made Sekai stop laughing. "Huh?"

"You looked so lonely… like you were here and not here…" Ibara said sadly, then brightened. "But now you're happy! I like you being happy!"

Sekai stared down at himself, opening up his hands as though expecting to find his melancholy in them. "I… guess I am," he said softly, turning his gaze back up to that little ray of sunshine he called his cousin. He hadn't even noticed when he'd stopped thinking about everything, but somewhere during the conversation, he had.

Ibara gazed at him for a moment. After a long pause, she declared, "I'm coming over every single day!"

"What!? You can't say that on your own!"

"I can too! And my mommy will let me!"

"That's not the… that's not the… uhh…" Unable to figure out the translation, Sekai settled for just pouting and folding his arms much like Ibara had done earlier. "Fine…" he grumbled, looking to the side, although not as put out as he let on.

"Yay!" Ibara cheered, hopping and then wrapping him up in a very warm hug. "I won't let you be lonely again, Kaikun! Promise!"

He didn't say anything for several moments. Then he looked up at Ibara with a soft smile and held out his pinky. "Pinky promise?"

Ibara blinked, then nodded excitedly and held out her own pinky. "Pinky promise!" she announced to the world.

As their pinkies wrapped around each other, Sekai decided that maybe it didn't matter whether he was Evan or Sekai. Not when both had things they loved in this crazy, messed up world.

...That was when Ibara noticed his red knuckles.

Her eyes widened with worry. "AAAAAH! KAIKUN, YOU HAVE A BOO-BOO!"

"Ibachan, don't tou—owowowow!"