Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A playground. A place of fun and laughter for the children who play in it.

A place where mythical battles and important tea parties occur.

A place where children can run around and be free.

Instead of the legions of happy children with their relieved parents sitting nearby however, only one group of elementary school kids stood. And by the looks on their faces, this was not just a game.

“K-kacchan, you’re hurting him,” the child with fluffy, green hair begged as he stood between a cruelly smirking blonde with his goons and another kid who looked to be already injured.

“No way, Deku! He thought he could get away with sneaking around our turf! Gotta make sure he learns his lesson!” the blonde said with confidence, his expression didn’t do so much as twitch as he spoke.

The two children flanking the blonde readied themselves to attack, one revealing his wings while the other extended their fingers.

It was some time later when Izuku found himself alone and on the ground, dirt and bruises covering his body.

It took some time for the child to push himself off the ground and begin making his way home. As he did so, he couldn’t help but wonder when it all started.

Two years ago, he went to the doctor with his mother to see what his quirk was going to be. All they were told was that the readings and tests they had were inconclusive at best. After they deliberated amongst themselves, the staff determined that Izuku was quirkless.

The boy desperately held out hope that he still might get a quirk. He ran around doing all sorts of tests in an attempt to activate whatever quirk he hoped to possess. But as time went on and many of peers gained quirks of their own, his own hope began to wane.

And things didn’t just get worse emotionally. Someone had saw fit to tell his classmates that he was quirkless. It had started out as just mocking, then the tripping began alongside some aggressive pushing here or there, and finally it evolved into punching and hitting. No matter how many times Izuku brought the bullying up to the teachers, none of them cared.

His mother had gotten involved several times as well, but nothing came of it.

“Children roughhouse all the time. It’s necessary for their development.”

He couldn’t fully understand the expression his mother had when being told that, but he could tell she didn’t believe the teacher.

Suffice to say that, aside from his mother, Izuku was alone. It was tragic to the child as he had many friends before he was announced as quirkless. But now, he had none.

His mind was brought back to the present when he closed the door to the Midoriya apartment. It was quiet, but that was expected with his mother out working at the moment. It was the entire reason he went to the playground.

As Izuku was cleaning himself up and getting a change of clothes, something curious popped up in the center of his vision.

He jumped back with a yelp when it first appeared. As he took a moment to observe it, it had not moved an inch. As he got closer and closer, he realized that it was some sort of message.

[System Download Complete. Would you like to initiate the System?]

[Yes / No]

It was… bizarre was the only word that came to mind. He swiveled his head about to see if there was someone or something nearby to cause the phenomena, but he found he was alone. His mother still had another hour before she got home too, not that she’d do something like this.

He then stared at the message again, twisting and turning every which way around the words to look at every minute detail. Throughout it all, it never once moved, as if the words themselves were ingrained in the air.

As he stood up straight in front of the message one last time, after making sure it wasn’t another prank, he decided to do the one thing he could at the moment: he pressed his little fingers into the ‘Yes’ option.

[Confirmed]

The message changed into that one word before disappearing entirely. He looked around for a few moments, the chances of it being a prank becoming increasingly likely in his mind until he jumped in surprise again.

A progress bar showed up at the center of his vision. Instead of staying in one place however, it was as if it was stuck to his own eyes as it never once moved from the center of his vision.

As the bar began to fill, he could begin spotting icons and other things sitting at the corner of his vision. They too moved with his eyes, never once changing position.

It took several minutes for the bar to fill entirely, and when it did it disappeared too before several messages fixed in space appeared like the first one.

[Congratulations!]

[You, the Player, now have access to the System.]

[To begin, please select a Class.]

As if the text was reading his mind, the moment he read the message, a list popped up below it. He had seen or heard the words before, but he had no idea what they meant in that context. That is until he tapped the words like before in curiosity.

[Fighter]

Strong offensive capabilities with weak defense. If you want to hit hard and hit fast, this is the Class for you.

[Tank]

Strong defense, but you walk at the pace of a snail’s crawl. You can take a lot of damage and even deal as much back if you build yourself up right, but if you’re hoping to move faster than rock, look elsewhere.

[Assassin]

Weak attacks and even weaker defenses, but you’ll never find anyone else more agile. Move faster than the eye can process. And if you need to move slower, then you can camouflage yourself with ease. Use surprise and subterfuge to defeat your enemies.

[Mage]

A powerful spell caster that can devastate hordes of monsters. But watch out, you won’t be able to take the kind of punishment you dish out.

He had no idea what this… System was talking about, but suddenly clicked when he read the [Mage] description.

These were roles he saw in some cartoons he watched.

The first was an honorable knight fighting on the front lines.

The second was like one of those guys with a shield bigger than they are.

The third was like a thief who snuck around and stole stuff. Izuku didn’t want that.

And the last one was probably like that wizard guy with the big, white beard that could do all sorts of cool things.

He fantasized about all the things he could do as a hero in most of the roles, but he stopped when he realized that there was still another option.

[Summoner]

While only middle of the pack at best in terms of strength, speed, and durability, you can summon friends and allies to fight alongside you.

One word stuck out to Izuku in that moment, something that he desperately wanted more than anything.

A friend.

He pushed the button to accept before he truly processed what he was doing.

[Acknowledged]

[Changing Class from (Player) to (Summoner)]

Izuku then noticed a word changing up at the top left corner of his vision. It took him a moment to realize that it would constantly move no matter where he looked, so after focusing his gaze on one spot he could see “Midoriya Izuku- Summoner” above two bars in the corner of his vision. One of these bars was green while the other was blue.

He began cheering. This was his quirk. There was no other explanation to it. As he continued to celebrate, he heard the door to the apartment open once again. He quickly dashed over to see his mother returning from her day at work.

He excitedly told her everything in excruciating detail about what had happened and what he was seeing.

She spun him around and hugged him in joy. Inko promised her baby boy that they’d get it checked out the next day.

Izuku felt that everything was going to change.

Nothing changed. Nothing changed at all. One could actually say it got worse.

When Izuku went to school the next day, everyone called him a liar. Katsuki was the worst of all. The explosive blonde used a small explosion to send him to the ground several times over the course of the day. Every time was preceded by the words “lying, useless Deku”.

It… hurt. A lot.

The doctor he and his mother went to after that said much the same about the situation. Although they were… “nicer” about it.

“It’s all in his head. He’s desperate for a quirk, so he’s imagining it.”

Inko took Izuku to another specialist who actually listened to Izuku. Apparently what he was seeing was a Heads-Up-Display, or a HUD for short. It was a common mechanic in many video games to help keep track of a number of stats or resources depending upon its configuration.

The specialist even tried to get Izuku to use his quirk, but most of the functions he had were locked behind level caps. Others had more specific restrictions such as needing someone else in his “party”, effectively his team or friends that could help him as the specialist explained.

He attempted to make a party with some of his classmates, but all of them declined. Even Katsuki declined as well. When Izuku pushed, saying that he needed friends to help unlock the potential of his quirk, the violent blonde immediately stated with finality that they were never friends.

The statement hurt in an entirely new way for the greenette.

Izuku searched for weeks to see if anyone, anywhere would help him, even if just temporarily. When he did however, word had circulated from the children to the parents about how Izuku was lying about a quirk to get attention. No one gave him a chance.

No one.

Izuku ran through the streets of Musutafu in the early morning. Up ahead was a giant sized villain stumbling through the streets. Yes, stumbling, as rampaging would have been too nice of a word for what the villain was doing.

The greenette took out his notebook and began writing down what he saw with enthusiasm. Kamui Woods and his skills in entrapment and evasion were something Izuku had been wanting to see for some time. He wasn’t going to waste an opportunity.

“Heh, you seem pretty excited kid.”

Izuku looked up from his note taking when he heard a voice calling out to him. He turned to see a bald man with three stars atop his head. He jumped slightly in embarrassment at being caught.

“O-oh, ye-yeah,” Izuku lamely answered.

“I’m guessing you wanna be a hero?” the man asked with a smirk.

The greenette smiled. “More than anything in the world!”

“Hm, nice! With that kind of enthusiasm, I’ll think you’ll be great!”

Although his smile did not fade, he felt his face strain somewhat when he glanced at his HUD yet again.

The villain was defeated by Mount Lady soon after, which was Izuku’s queue to leave as soon as possible. As much as he hated it, he couldn’t be late to school.

As he was running, he slipped his hero notebook into his bag next to the gaming notebook he had made.

At age seventeen Izuku has a lot of time to think about his quirk and what it could do. This fact became especially true when he started playing video games himself and took notes on them. He stayed away from some of the more violent and gory stuff because there wasn’t much he could learn from those games anyways.

From what he could tell, his quirk, Gamer, effectively made him an RPG protagonist. He could grow in level, have skills, spells, and a variety of other things as well. Emphasis on could.

Even after eleven years, he had been unable to unlock any more functions of his quirk.

Almost all of the Skills and Spells he could have were locked behind level requirements. And at an eternal level one, he could have zero Spells and one Skill. Unfortunately, that one Skill was Summon, his main ability as a Summoner.

It was fully active, he could use it at any time, but he didn’t have anything to do it with. Summoning requires one of three things; enough materials from a Dungeon, money, or he could tame an already living creature through specialized conditions.

He can’t go into a Dungeon because the System requires he has a Summon or a party in order to do so, which also meant he couldn’t gain levels since fighting and potentially killing something normally would be illegal, not even mentioning that it would most likely just not work. He could buy sufficient materials from the lowest rank of the Shop with money, except that the System has its own currency which he can only find in a Dungeon. It’s also why he can’t just buy a Summon either. The third and final option is specifically talking about monsters within Dungeons. Which, again, is something he can’t do without a Summon.

So he was stuck. Frustratingly so. He hoped that playing and taking notes on a variety of games could help him find some way out of the loop. He obviously didn’t find one.

And all because he didn’t read the full description too.

[Summoner]

While only middle of the pack at best in terms of strength, speed, and durability, you can summon friends and allies to fight alongside you. However, it is best for one to have friends and allies to call upon first as they are the source of your strength.

As much as he understood, he really didn’t like how his child self rushed to pick his Class.

Still, he was at least able to make progress in one area, as pathetic as some of the requirements seemed to be.

Feats were special accomplishments that could provide rewards. The biggest issue was that he didn’t know the requirements of ones he doesn’t have. So, yes, while he could potentially get EXP or materials through Feats, the simple fact was that he has no idea what could possibly accomplish that.

And apparently some of the Feats, while obtained, will not grant him any rewards or a description of what the Feat is until he meets other conditions or requirements. He just hopes that it’s not EXP or materials.

Although there were a few rewards he was actually able to get. Though the circumstance he got them from made him feel… pathetic.

[Feat- Tougher than Flames: by continuously exposing yourself to fire damage, you have gained an affinity for fire.]

[You have received Aspect: Fire- Level 1]

[Feat- Like the Wind: by sprinting with all your might for thirty minutes straight, you now carry some of the wind’s power within you.]

[You have received Aspect: Wind- Level 1]

[Feat- Unshakable: by holding true to your convictions despite opposition, you have represented the power of earth itself.]

[You have received Aspect: Earth- Level 1]

[Feat- Tougher than Flames- Level 2: by further exposure, you have increased your affinity with fire.]

[Aspect: Fire- Level 1 has upgraded to Aspect: Fire- Level 2]

[Feat- Pure of Heart: by aiding others without seeking reward, the light within your heart has brightened.]

[You have received Aspect: Light- Level 1]

Aspects seemed to be some sort of attribute affinity system. If Izuku’s theories were correct, then gaining higher and higher levels would make whatever Skills and Spells aligned with that attribute more powerful.

And while he was grateful to have at least something, it still irks him how most of it came from Bakugou bullying him.

The final thing he can glean that isn’t locked or stuck in the loop that has trapped him is his stats. They’re mostly straightforward in their roles and definitions.

STR- Strength. Most likely used to calculate damage. Currently unknown if it affects actual physical strength.

VIT- VItality. Most likely increases maximum HP and defense as well.

AGI- Agility. Effectively his speed stat.

INT- Intelligence. Most commonly used for mana capacity and regeneration as well as magical damage.

DEX- Dexterity. The actual definition relates to how skilled you are with your hands. In RPGs however, it takes on a number of roles. Need more data.

LUK- Luck. He has theories, but nothing conclusive as of yet.

In most RPGs, with just a little time and effort, someone can take their character from the level of a farmboy to that of a demi-god with stats alone… if they can get their level high enough.

For one Midoriya Izuku, his stats page is a little more… bland.

Midoriya Izuku

Class: Summoner

LVL: 1

HP: 100
MP: 100

Stats:
STR: 10
VIT: 10
AGI: 10
INT: 10
DEX: 10
LUK: 10

Skills:
Summon

Spells:
None

Aspect:
Light- Level 1
???
Fire- Level 2
???
Wind- Level 1
Earth- Level 1
???
???

Izuku was quietly packing up for the day whilst thinking about the villain encounter from that morning. That day at school wasn’t the most productive nor… peaceful. There was the typical bullying, sure, but then the teacher called Izuku out for applying to UA for his top choice in a college. Obviously everyone took the opportunity to belittle him, many still calling him a liar as well.

But now the day was over. All he had to do was to finish packing up, avoid Bakugou, and get home.

Unfortunately, that plan immediately evaporated when he felt his Hero notebook being snatched from his hands.

“Well well well, what do we have here?” one of Bakugou’s lackeys asked rhetorically. Izuku searched his memory for a name, but decided against it when he thought about the dozen-plus other lackeys that came before him.

“H-hey, wait! Give that back!” the greenette cried out as he began to reach out.

Bakugou blocked his path before he was in reach.

“Ooh, what you got, his diary?” the other lackey jeered as Izuku watched helplessly. He knew what was mostly likely happening next, especially as the notebook was handed off to Bakugou.

“‘Hero Notes for the Future’?” the blonde read off.

“Hah! Seriously?! You think you can study to be a Hero?”

“It’s so pathetic!”

“Y-yeah, real funny guys. Can I have it back?” The only hope he had of getting it back was to play along until they got bored. That hope was dashed when the “boss” blew it up with his patented explosion. “Hey, I worked hard on that!”

Bakugou ignored him and just threw the remains out the window.

“Most Heroes show potential from the start. When I get out of this shithole and into UA, people will start talking about me like that. The next big thing. And that’s not ego talking, I’m just that damn good,” the explosive blonde said while wearing a cruel smirk on his face. Izuku was startled when he took a step forward, the greenette falling on his backside in the process.

“Then there’s you. I honestly can’t think of a reason for anyone to look up to you. Even so, you still try to live out in your little fantasy with your made up quirk. It’s honestly pathetic.”

Izuku whimpered as the lackeys laughed. Bakugou stood tall as he glared down at the diminutive greenette.

“Feh. Whatever. I’ve got more important things to do than watch you squirm longer than I already have. Don’t apply to UA, or else.”

With that, the blonde turned and began to make his way out. The two lackeys turned to each other and just shrugged.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Bakugou said as he stopped in the doorway. Izuku froze in the middle of pushing himself up off the floor.

“There’s actually a way that you might still be a Hero if you want it that badly. Just hope for wn actual quirk in your next life, and take a swan dive off of the roof.”

Izuku sat shocked at the bully’s words, completely immobile as he could only watch the blonde leave.

That’s right, Bakugou hasn’t been his friend for a while. Ever since that first day where he tried to form a party, it became more and more obvious to the verdette.

He felt numb knowing that his once-friend truly hated him that much. This same feeling is what carried him out of the classroom and down to where his notebook had been thrown.

He felt annoyance spike when he saw that some koi were gnawing on it. “That’s not fish food. Give it back!” he said before ripping the book away from the fish. “Dammit. What the hell was he thinking? Telling me to jump?”

He shook his head as he began his trek back home. Luckily the notebook was still mostly legible. He’d have to rewrite a few things, but at least he didn’t need to start over again. He would need to dry it out though.

As he let that small victory comfort him, he began to really think about it all. Nobody besides his mother and the quirk specialist they started seeing after the first one all but called him a liar really believed him about his quirk. And even then, the specialist was only really doing his job.

The only reason Izuku took as many notes about video games as he did was because of his mother. She wasn’t a gamer by any means, that much was painfully obvious to Izuku, but she did bring up the point of exploits or a workaround. Something that could break the loop.

Her constant support is really the only thing that’s kept him going.

But even so, it wasn’t enough any more. So much time spent studying, experimenting, and he found nothing in the eleven years he spent trying.

There wasn’t much he could do anymore.

As he began to cross under an underpass, he received a strange notification on his HUD.

[Warning! A powerful enemy has been detected! Recommend escape!]

Before he could process the words, he was suddenly assailed by a half a dozen sludge tendrils.

He barely had enough time to shout out in surprise before he was restrained and felt another one of the tendrils force itself down his throat.

“Crap, I didn’t know he was in town. Luckily you’re here. I can use you as a skinsuit and get away without anyone being wiser. You’re a real hero to me, kid.”

Izuku’s panic continued to rise, especially as he felt his lungs strain for air. The words the apparent villain spoke did not ease his anxiety in the slightest.

As Izuku felt himself starting to pass out, he spotted a hulking figure off to the side. He heard a heavily muddled voice before his vision began going dark.

And as the last bits of consciousness left him, he could have sworn he heard a familiar chime.

[Feat- Back from the Brink: through surviving a near-death experience, you have become closer to Death.]

[You have received Aspect: Shadow- Level 2]

The next sensation he felt was that of a repeated tapping on his cheek. No, that wasn’t it. He was being lightly slapped? As he regained consciousness, a familiar voice broke through the fog of his mind. His eyes shot open in surprise.

“HEY HEY HEY! YOU'RE FINALLY AWAKE! THOUGHT I LOST YOU FOR A SECOND THERE!”

“A-A-A-Al-All Might?!” he finally managed to say past his stutter.

“YES! IT IS I, ALL MIGHT, HERE TO SAVE THE DAY! AND I FOR ONE AM GLAD I WAS ABLE TO HELP YOU BEFORE IT WAS TOO LATE! I DIDN’T MEAN TO GET YOU CAUGHT UP IN MY JUSTICE-ING!”

Izuku felt like he would start hyperventilating any second. There was the man, the myth, the legend just standing there in front of him in one of his iconic poses. A thought struck him like a truck.

“W-wait! Can you sign my notebook?” He felt around to find said item for a few moments before he started to panic. “M-My notebook! Where is it?!”

“WOULD YOU BE REFFERING TO THIS?” All Might queried as he held out the familiar book.

Izuku snatched the book and began examining it before flipping to a page near the back. “Whoa, it's already signed!” He held it close to him as he bowed to the mountain of a man in front of him. “Thank you so much! I’ll cherish it for the rest of my life!”

All Might let out a boisterous laugh in response. “I’M GLAD TO SEE THAT YOU’RE SO LIVELY! I AM HAPPY TO KNOW THAT THAT IS THE CASE AS I COULD NOT LOCATE ANY MORE SLUDGE IN YOUR MOUTH OR AROUND THE AREA! WITH THAT SAID, I MUST SAY GOODBYE!”

“Wait, you’re leaving already? I need to ask you a question first!” Izuku called out in a panic as the Hero began to walk off.

“UNFORTUNATELY I DO NOT HAVE THE TIME AT THE MOMENT! DON’T WANT THIS GUY TO WAKE UP BEFORE HE’S IN POLICE CUSTODY!” the Symbol of Peace stated as he patted his pockets which held the captured villain. “THANKS FOR YOUR CONTINUOUS SUPPORT!”

With that, he crouched and jumped away. Though not true flight, jumping hundreds of meters in the air and directing yourself with bursts of air pressure was still quite convenient. The Number One Hero was planning to land nearby and transform to save what limited time he had left, but a voice below him that was far too close for comfort drew his attention.

He looked down to see the same green-haired boy clutching onto his pant leg for dear life. All Might attempted to calm the boy and told him to hold on as he redirected them down onto a nearby rooftop.

A minute later, he observed the boy, Midoriya Izuku if he read the damaged notebook correctly, shaking like a leaf while muttering about his life flashing before his eyes. All Might had to admit that that seemed like a realistic reaction.

“ALRIGHT, WITH THAT OUT OF THE WAY, PLEASE NEVER DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT EVER AGAIN,” he sternly told the boy. “BANG ON THE DOOR FOR SOMEONE TO LET YOU IN. I HAVE TO GO NOW. SEE YOU ON THE FLIP SIDE!”

“W-wait!” the boy called out. For whatever reason, All Might felt himself stop for a moment. Unfortunately, he noticed that his next exhale was a bit… steamy.

“Is it possible to become a Hero even if I don’t have a quirk? Could I ever hope to be someone like you?” the verdette asked while anxiously staring at his shoes. When his idol did not respond, he continued. “W-well, I do have a quirk, but it doesn’t work properly, like it’s inactive. I haven’t found a way to grow stronger with it even after trying to find loopholes for a decade, but I always thought saving people with a smile on your face like you do was the coolest thing ever. I want to save people, but almost everyone thinks that I can’t do it. So I’ve wanted to ask you for a while now: do you think I could be a Hero like you, even with a quirk like mine?”

Izuku finally looked up at his idol. In his place was an almost skeletal blonde-haired man.

Izuku started screaming.

Chapter Text

Izuku just didn’t understand specifically what it was about that day that caused everything for him to change, but he did remember one part very clearly…

“Imposter!” he exclaimed whilst pointing at the emaciated man after… several minutes of panicked screaming.

“No, young man, I assure you that I am Al-” he was interrupted when blood erupted like a geyser from his mouth.

Izuku started screaming again, though this time in worry.

The man pulled out a handkerchief and used it to wipe his mouth. “Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to spook ya.” After a few moments he pocketed the handkerchief. “As I was saying, I am All Might.”

“But that’s impossible!” he exclaimed, disbelief still at the forefront of his mind.

“Well, you see, it’s like those guys who suck in their guts and flex at the pool to look buff. For me, I just sorta… expand, I guess,” the skeletal man explained while shrugging.

“I’m definitely dreaming. Right! There’s no way that this is real. All Might is a giant of a man that defeats every obstacle and saves everyone with a fearless smile on his face!”

“There’s plenty of fear behind that smile,” the blonde interrupted, his expression solemn and his eyes slightly distant. Izuku stared at the imposter(?) with wide, surprised eyes. The man let out a short sigh. “I’m counting on you to not tell anyone about this, not even your friends or online.”

Before Izuku has much time to question the man’s words, the man who is apparently All Might lifts up his shirt. Izuku was stunned still when he saw the massive scar that covered a large portion of the left half of the man’s abdomen.

“Pretty gross, right? I got it in a fight about five years back. I lost my whole stomach, my respiratory system was basically destroyed, and all the surgeries to fix as much as they could wore me out. As it stands, I can only do hero work for about three hours a day. This,” he says after letting go of his shirt and gesturing to his body, “is what I look like the rest of the time.”

Shock was an understatement. Izuku wasn’t entirely sure what emotion he wasn’t feeling at the moment. He tried to grasp onto something, anything to somehow ground himself. “F-five years ago? The only fight I can think of is the one with Toxic Chainsaw.”

All Might looked genuinely impressed for a moment. “Huh, you know your stuff, but no. That punk may have landed a few hits, but he wasn’t capable of taking me down. The fight I’m talking about is one I’ve done everything to keep under wraps. You said it yourself, I’m the guy who’s always smiling, the Symbol of Peace. Truth be told, that smile is just a mask I use to hide the fear inside. Some villains are just too much for a normal person.

“So to answer your question, despite how admirable your desires are, no, I don’t think you can become a Hero with an inactive quirk.”

Izuku felt himself slouch and look down once again. “I… I see.”

“There’s plenty of things you could do without a quirk anyways. A police officer, a medic, a firefighter…” All Might trailed off as he made his way to the door. He opened it and then came to a stop just before going through to finish his thought. “It’s nice to have dreams, but it’s best to make them attainable first, young man.”

And with that, the Symbol of Peace closed the door behind him as he left, leaving Midoriya Izuku alone on the rooftop.

He wasn’t sure about how much time he spent just thinking in general before a loud boom shook him from his stupor. He brightened up slightly, realizing that a Hero would show up to the origin of that cloud of smoke, but then the words from before hit him like a truck.

He started walking. He wasn’t entirely sure where, he just wanted off that rooftop.

From there, he wandered. He wasn’t exactly where he was going, but he honestly didn’t care. The act itself just helped.

It took bumping into a large crowd to make him take in his surroundings once again.

He startled before looking around, taking in the entire area before him. It was a fairly normal intersection all things considered. The only big differences were the crowd of civilians and the plumes of smoke billowing up from a few buildings nearby.

“Oh, this is where that explosion happened. Is the fight still going on?” Izuku mumbled to himself upon realization. “I wonder if I came here on instinct. Might as well go home.”

He turned around, but a nearby conversation took all of his attention in an instant.

“Why aren’t the Heroes doing anything?” a civilian asked with an anxious tone.

“Apparently the villain’s got a hostage. They can’t go all out without risking him.”

‘A hostage?’ Out of pure curiosity, Izuku began snaking his way through the assembled crowd to see just what everyone was talking about.

And when Izuku got to the front to see the situation in its entirety, his blood ran cold.

The Sludge Villain from before had apparently escaped from All Might. When Izuku thought back, it most likely happened when he grabbed onto the Hero’s leg. Guilt began to creep up his spine upon his realization.

“How dare you take an innocent civilian hostage!” cried Death Arms as he went in for a punch with his enhanced strength. He balked when the impact had no effect. “Dammit! What is this, some kind of goo?”

The Sludge Villain sprouted several tendrils that crashed into Death Arms’s abdomen and sent him flying into a nearby wall.

“You alright Death Arms?!”

“Incoming!”

Death Arms and the other Heroes around him jumped out of the way of some more tendrils. “Stay back or I snap his damn neck!” the villain exclaimed.

“Damn you! I’ll send you back to whatever sewer you slunk out from! Let me go!”

Izuku felt his eyes widen even more as he recognized the voice. With all the chaos, he hadn’t gotten a good look at the apparent hostage. With the voice as a clue, he could easily see the familiar form of Bakugou Katsuki partially inside the mass of green goo.

The people around him were talking, he could also tell another Hero showed up, but none of that mattered. All he knew for sure was that his once-friend was in the grasp of a villain that was fully willing to kill him. The Heroes stood around useless as the blonde’s mouth was covered in sludge.

A cacophony of words filled Izuku’s head. The insults and jeers from his former friends and peers, the dismissing words or his idol, and his own thoughts telling him that the entire situation wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t distracted All Might.

But then it all fell quiet when Izuku could clearly see the scared, pleading eyes of Bakugou.

Before he knew it, his body was moving rapidly towards the Sludge Villain. Izuku had no idea what he was doing, the voices of the Heroes around him exclaiming much the same, but he just couldn’t stop. All he knew was that someone was in trouble.

“Huh, you again?!” the villain asked before sending out more tendrils to attack.

Izuku, in desperation, scanned through his memories for a way to fight off the villain. That’s when he noticed something. A common trope in video games was enemies with impenetrable armor or bodies. Even so, every living creature, real or fictional, always has one weakness in common…

‘Go for the eyes!’ One particular move from Kamui Woods sprung to mind.

“Take this!” the greenette cried out. Before the tendrils could reach him, he pulls a random notebook from his backpack and hurls it at the sensory organ with all his might.

The villain exclaims when his eye is hit dead on by the book. While he was distracted, Izuku ran over to his bully and clawed at the sludge until it partially gave way, allowing the blonde to gasp for more precious air. Bakugou prepared to say something, but was cut off.

“What the- Hey, get the hell back!”

Izuku jumped back to get out of the way of some tendrils the villain sent out. Desperate for an answer, or at least something to help, he scans everything he can see in record time, his brain working overtime to find any way to survive. From the rubble to the Heroes. In the end, nothing could save him in time. In anger, he even started to search his HUD which he had mostly tuned out by that point. The notifications that he was met with shocked him.

[Feat- In Spite: You have conquered your fear of Death and acted when no one else did. Your affinity towards both the light and dark have grown.]

[Aspect: Light- Level 1 has upgraded to Aspect: Light- Level 2]

[Aspect: Shadow- Level 2 has upgraded to Aspect: Shadow- Level 3]

[Feat- Attuned: You have gained noticeable affinity with the Aspect of Shadow. A spirit from beyond has sensed your growing power and has decided to heed your call.]

[You have received one free use of Random Summon (Shadow)]

[Would you like to use Random Summon (Shadow)?]

[Yes / No]

The moment he read that, the very words that would decide his future popped into existence in front of Izuku. In his panicked state he hit ‘yes’ before he could fully understand what was written before him just like all those years ago.

[Confirmed. Summoning…]

A progress bar popped up on his HUD. The few seconds he evaded in panic as everyone watched on felt like days as he watched the bar fill. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for it to reach 100%.

[Summoning complete. You have summoned Shadow Enforcer.]

[Warning! You are currently engaged in a battle. Reinforcements necessary.]

[Would you like to deploy Shadow Enforcer to aid you?]

[Yes / No]

As the Sludge Villain sent out one final swipe of his sludge tendrils, Izuku hurriedly pressed ‘yes’ one last time.

[Deploying…]

He closed his eyes and braced for the impact…

…

…but it never came.

After a moment, he began to slowly open his eyes, only to immediately widen upon seeing an armored arm reaching out from behind him and blocking the tendril. Turning around, he could see that the mysterious arm was originating from his own shadow. That is when another arm emerged alongside the first and began pushing against the ground.

Slowly but surely, a large humanoid knight covered in dark armor pushed itself up from his shadow. The gauntlet that took the blow for him suddenly shook off the villain before the knight stood at its full height. The Summon was imposing, easily a few feet taller than Izuku. The greenette could vaguely hear gasps coming from the direction of the crowd.

And without a single word, the Shadow Enforcer circled around Izuku and charged at the villain who dared to threaten its Summoner.

Before anyone else could react, the knight punched into the green sludge of the villain, gripped the jacket of his captive, and pulled the blonde high schooler free with ease.

Tossing the boy to the side, the Summon then threw their other hand into the sludge. Izuku was questioning if the Summon was intelligent enough to know that it couldn’t damage sludge by punching. His concerns were invalidated when he saw another message appear in his HUD.

[Shadow Enforcer used Spell: Gust]

It didn’t take long to see what the Summon’s plan was.

“W-wait, what the hell is going on!” the villain exclaimed as the sludge that he was composed of began to expand rapidly beyond his control.

Mere moments later, he popped like a balloon.

Izuku quickly closed his eyes to prevent any of the goop from getting anywhere unpleasant. After taking an extra second to ensure that it had all settled, he opened his eyes once again to see a large puddle of sludge sitting where the villain once stood with smaller patches of more goop here or there. If the groaning originating from the largest mass was any indication, the villain was now unconscious.

[You have defeated a powerful enemy. Calculating EXP.]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

‘So just defeating villains counts as winning a battle? That’s good. And that guy was a “powerful enemy”? Oh well, at least I leveled up,’ he idly thought to help ground himself. That day was just one thing after another. He needed at least something to distract himself. Actually, the series of notifications he was getting was a good place to start.

Of course, that’s when the shouting started.

“What the hell were you thinking?!”

Izuku jumped in surprise and turned his gaze to see Death Arms marching towards him. “Do you even realize how much danger-!”

He was cut off when the Shadow Enforcer suddenly slid in between him and Izuku. The darkly armored knight seemed ready and prepared for a battle.

Death Arms seemed to take a combat stance in response, just waiting for the Summon to make a move.

“W-wait!” Izuku called out to the knight. “U-um, uh, stand down?!” he ordered unsuredly.

The Shadow Enforcer turned its helm to observe its Summoner. To Izuku, it actually felt like it was analyzing him. It turned back to look at Death Arms before finally taking a more relaxed stance.

Izuku let out a sigh of relief.

The Pro Hero saw that the knight listened to the boy and partially relaxed his posture as well. “Now, as I was saying, do you even realize how much danger you put not just yourself, but everyone here in danger because of your recklessness?“ the man asked angrily.

Izuku stuttered, struggling to find any words to say at all. That’s when someone else interrupted them.

“Whoa, hold on big guy,” Mount Lady intervened. “Obviously this was stressful for everybody, but let’s not harp on the kid too much. Here, let me take care of him. That sludge guy still needs to be dealt with,” she finished while gesturing over to the pile of goop.

Death Arms opened his mouth to reply, but Kamui Woods interjected himself as well. “Probably for the best. The guy is everywhere right now.”

Death Arms turned his stern gaze from Mount Lady to Kamui Woods several times before relenting with a harsh grunt, though he did make sure to send one last glare to Izuku. The man then broke off to begin helping the few police officers that had started the arduous task of getting every last piece of the villain.

Kamui Woods waved at Mount Lady for a moment before following his muscular coworker.

Off to the side, a spiky blonde stared in shock at the greenette before he was dragged away by paramedics.

Meanwhile another blonde slipped away with the crowd feeling impressed with the boy.

“Uh, right. You injured at all, kid?” she asked after a moment, though Izuku could tell she was a little shaken herself.

It took him a moment to actually process the question. “O-oh. No, I-I don’t feel anything wrong… j-just, you know…”

“Yeah, I get it. You don’t mind if I check you over, do you? Just for my own peace of mind.”

Izuku shuffled awkwardly until he nodded at her. As the Heroine curled him to better lightly poke around and examine his body, the ever silent Shadow Enforcer immediately began making its way over to make an effort to separate the pair.

“W-wait, h-hold on a second,” he said to the Summon as he held out his hand to stop it.

The Summon did as told and waited.

“What’s up?” the blonde newbie asked.

“Uh, the-uh… that,” he said whilst gesturing to the imposing figure the Shadow Enforcer, “started walking towards us aggressively. I think it wanted to separate us.”

Mount Lady looked the knight up and down, her body slightly tense on instinct. “Okaaaay. Why?

“I… think it was trying to protect me?” he asked more than he stated.

“You don’t sound very sure,” the Heroine pointed out.

“T-this is the first time I’ve ever done something like this. I-I don’t even know what it’s fully capable of.”

The young woman blinked as she shifted her gaze between the two figures, her eyes scanning the two of them as if piecing a puzzle together.

After a moment she lightly smacked her closed fist into her other open hand. “Ah, I get it. This was the first time you ever used your quirk, right?”

“U-uh, te-technically, yeah.”

“Well, that makes this a whole lot easier for the both of us,” she responded as she continued to examine him.

“H-how does that make what easier?” he queried with trepidation.

“Say ‘ah’,” she instructed as she pulled her phone out of a secret pocket.

He did as told as she turned its flashlight on and began examining his throat.

“Well, you did just kind of illegally use your quirk. Granted, it was a life or death situation, but you did put yourself in that position.” After she finished her explanation, she turned up her flashlight and sighed. “The back of your throat is slightly bruised. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Y-yeah. I didn’t even know that it was,” he said whilst unconsciously rubbing his neck. It took another second for her explanation to sink in, a slightly fearful expression began to grow on his face. “W-wait, what?”

Mount Lady held her hands up in a calming gesture. “Hold up, don’t freak out. While they will be annoyed, they can’t arrest you for a stress activation. Especially if said activation was the first ever for you. Though…” she trailed off as she looked back at the Summon, “it might be best to figure out how to get rid of this guy.”

“A-ah, right.” He said with relief before looking towards his first Summon in thought. The message he panickedly read earlier said that he was deploying it, right? Then… “Y-you’re dismissed?”

The Shadow Enforcer stood unflinching for a moment before nodding its head. A few seconds later, it began to dissolve into shadow and merged with his own.

“Whoa, cool,” the newbie Heroine commented. “Alright, with all that squared away, you head on home. I’ll talk to the cops and get that handled.”

“Are you sure? I-“

“Yes, I’m sure,” she interrupted. “Trust me, you’ll be here a while if you decide to stick around. Just, promise me you won’t be that stupid again. While I can admit that charging in like that was brave, it was also idiotic at best. Got that?”

Izuku looked down in shame as he nodded.

“Good,” Mount Lady stated with a firm nod of her head. Izuku could tell her expression changed to be more contemplative as he turned to walk away. “Wait, one more thing.”

Izuku turned back to heed the blonde’s call. She extended a hand that held her phone. “I don’t normally do this, but you seem to be a bit in over your head with your quirk. Believe me, I’ve been there. If you ever need someone to talk to, just call me. Just make sure not to go spreading this around.”

Izuku glanced between the phone screen and the Heroine’s face several times before it clicked. Before he could lose whatever nerve he had, he scrambled to pull his phone out and activate a function of his phone that hadn’t had much chance to use.

With a quick tap, they exchanged contact info.

“Midoriya Izuku, huh? Nice to meet you.”

“N-nice to meet you too!” he responded with a bow.

“Alright, you better get outta here now,” she said while waving him off.

With another bow and another “thank you”, he was off down a side alley and away from the scene.

That day was… complicated to say the least. He got suicide baited, almost actually died, met his idol, got his dreams broken by the same man, rushed in to save his bully from the same villain he almost died to, only to then get his first Summon.

“Wait…” he trailed off as he slowed to a stop. “I have a Summon now… I have a Summon now! This changes everything!”

“I AM HERE!”

Izuku startled at the booming voice, cutting his celebration short. He started freaking out again when All Might literally slid to a stop right in front of him.

“A-A-All Might?! What are you doing here?!”

The Symbol of Peace let out another one of his hearty laughs at the question. “IS THAT NOT OBVIOUS? I CAME TO CHECK IN ON THE HERO OF THE HOUR!”

“W-w-what? Th-then why are you with me?” the verdette asked again, unsure what the man meant.

“I JUST TOLD YOU, YOUNG MAN! I’M HERE TO TALK TO THE HERO WHO PUT A STOP TO THAT SLIPPERY VILLAIN! AND THAT HE-”

Before he could finish the statement, the man instantly deflated before blood gushed from his mouth. After taking out a handkerchief and whipping away the blood in a practiced motion, the deflated form of the Number One Hero spoke.

“Sorry about that. I should’ve transformed back when I found you again. Anyways, I’m here to talk to you, young man,” the skeletal blonde continued.

“W-why?” the greenette asked with no small amount of trepidation.

“For starters, I’d like to apologize for what I said earlier.” The man bowed soon after the words left his mouth. “I was far too harsh and careless with my words earlier. All I could think about was you going into the field with an inactive quirk and fighting the same villain that gave me this injury,” All Might clarified with a pained expression.

“Suffice to say, what I said was wrong, and not because you defeated the Sludge Villain. No, it was what you did before that moment that proved me wrong,” he preemptively corrected while holding up his hand.

“While the stories of great heroes vary, they all have one thing in common. There bodies move before they can react. And I could tell from the start that that was what happened to you.”

Izuku felt his legs give way under him. He dared to hope, the world had already crushed his dreams before, but he still dared.

“I overheard your conversation with Mount Lady, that that shadow knight was merely an accident. That only lends more truth to my words.

“Midoriya Izuku, you can become a hero.”

The dam broke. The tears that ran down his face weren’t like the geysers that him and his mother were prone to causing. No, the streams that ran down his face were filled with relief and hope. After so long, someone other than his mother finally believed in him.

“I deem you worthy to inherit my power.”

“…huh?”

Chapter Text

Izuku stood tall as he looked out to the horizon, the water in the distance sparkling due to the light emitted by the morning sun.

He casted his gaze lower and spotted his “enemy” so to speak.

Trash.

Lots and lots and lots of trash.

Those words alone perfectly encapsulated the current aesthetic of Dagobah Municipal Beach Park. It was also the perfect place to train if All Might is to be believed.

It had been a week since Izuku met the blonde. And to say their meeting had been interesting was an understatement. All Might, or Yagi Toshinori the man had insisted, did make sure to quickly make up for his mistake. And to say the offer he made was interesting in of itself was… a massive understatement.

One Week Ago

“Inherit your… what?”

“It is as I said,” the emaciated blonde began. “There are many facets to my power, one of which includes the ability to pass it on to one I see as worthy. And I see you as worthy.”

“You… can pass on your quirk?” Izuku asked dumbly.

“Essentially.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“Uh-“

“WHAT THE-“ All Might jumped, startled at the outburst from the boy. “No wait, hold on- that- if you actually do possess a quirk that you can pass on that doesn’t require reproduction, then that alone changes our entire understanding of quirks. If news about it were to get out, chaos is the least of your worries! And that’s not even thinking of the quirk’s abilities as well.”

“Uh, kid, stop nerding out!” the Symbol of Peace interrupted. Izuku blushed before calming himself down. “Right, I’m glad you’re so enthusiastic, but I do need an answer. I can pass down my quirk to you, but I still need to know whether or not you want it.”

“O-oh, r-right. Sorry,” Izuku quickly apologized. “Then…”

He thought long and hard about it. The offer could be a complete hoax, but on the off chance it wasn’t, then he had to take it seriously. Even so, with what he had been through just moments, he had his answer fairly quickly.

“I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to decline,” the gamer finally answered.

All Might nodded sagely after a moment. “Hm, I see.”

Izuku paused, an awkward silence now growing between the pair before the greenette began to speak unsuredly. “Uh, weren’t you, I dunno, expecting me to… accept?”

“Hoping? Yes,” the man admitted. “That said, it’s your decision in the end. Although, if you do not mind, I would like to know your reasoning,” the disguised hero probed.

“Oh,” Izuku replied lamely, blinking a few times before clearing his throat and explaining further. “Well, I’ve had my quirk for the longest time, and now I can actually start using it to its fullest potential,” the verdette began to do as requested. “Your offer sounds like a dream come true, but taking it could also mean putting in less time with the quirk I already have. That… I dunno, it just feels like I’m giving up.”

All Might remained quiet as he processed the young man’s words. After a few moments, he began to smile. “I get it. You want to become stronger with what you have. If I didn’t already have your answer, I’d say you're the perfect candidate. Oh well,” the hero replied with a shrug. “So what are your plans?”

Izuku blinked and tilted his head at the odd question. “What do you mean?”

“What are your plans from here? You gonna train, or what? And what school are you trying to get into to be a hero?”

“Oh! Right, that,” Izuku realized while scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. “Well, I’m trying to get into UAU. It’s where you and so many other great Heroes went, so…”

All Might chuckled. “Alright, I get it. With that being the case, here,” the skeletal man said whilst pulling out his phone and holding it out in front of him. Izuku stared dumbly for a few seconds before the man’s voice broke through. “Uh, Young Midoriya?”

Izuku jumped slightly. “S-sorry!” he quickly said in apology. “Sorry, just, uh, why?”

“Why what?”

“Well, I’m not inheriting your quirk, right?” The Symbol of Peace nodded. “Th-then why do you want my phone number?”

“You’re a good kid that I want to see succeed,” the blonde stated simply, as if that were the most obvious thing in the world. Izuku felt himself become flushed under the praise. “Just because you’re not going to be my successor doesn’t mean we can’t talk to each other. Plus, you look like you need some advice on how to train, something I’m more than willing to give.”

Izuku’s eyes widened in surprise for a moment before he began to reach for his own phone. He felt like he was in a dream. Not only did he have the numbers of two Pro Heroes, but one of them was the All Might.

When the message of confirmation popped up on both of their phones, All Might continued. “You’re also pretty smart too. As embarrassing as it is, I’m not the best teacher. I was hoping you’d be willing to help out whoever I chose as a successor.”

“I… I’d be honored!” the fanboy exclaimed with a bow. “Do you already have anyone in mind?”

“Hmm, it’s a short list, very short actually, but yes. Thanks to you, I’m considering a few people I didn’t before.”

“M-me? I-I don’t think I did anything that special.”

All Might laughed, but it wasn’t the usual one he used to calm crowds of people. This one felt more… genuine. “‘Not special’? Kid, you running out there inspired me to act even though I was at the end of my time limit. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, that knight in dark armor intervened. Speaking of, how did that happen? I assume that was you?”

“O-oh, uh, it has to do with my quirk. The full explanation is a bit long-winded though,” Izuku warned. The blonde just gestured to continue.

And so, Izuku told him everything. His quirk, the loop he got himself unintentionally stuck in… it was actually quite a lot now that he was saying it all out loud.

After Izuku finished explaining, All Might stood in silent contemplation. “Yeah, I can see how that’d be frustrating. Though I’m glad you’re finally out of that mess. Your quirk does present a problem though…” he trailed off as he cupped his chin in thought.

Izuku tilted his head questioningly.

“You said you had a stat page, right?” He received a nod of confirmation. “I haven’t played many games in a while, but if you have stats yourself, then doesn’t that mean that your physical capabilities are tied to those stats?”

Izuku froze as he comprehended the logic. The Hero-hopeful hung his head in dread. “I was so focused on breaking the loop that I didn’t put much thought into my stats.”

“I guess I’ll call in a few favors then” the blonde hummed out in thought. “I know some pretty good quirk specialists. I’ll see if they can’t give us a workaround. Until then, I suggest you get home. It’s getting pretty late.”

At the man’s words, Izuku hurriedly pulled out his phone again.

“Crap! You’re right! Thank you for everything All Might!” he exclaimed whilst sprinting off, leaving the blonde behind.

Yagi Toshinori shook his head. That kid was going to be a handful, but he didn’t regret offering his help. Speaking of which, it was high time to get into gear. He had an old friend to call sooner rather than later.

To say he got home to a worried mother was an understatement. She was so close to tears that Izuku wasn’t sure if he should run to get a few bottles of water. When Inko calmed down, she almost forced him into just resting on the couch. At least she let him change first.

Apparently news of the Sludge Villain circulated pretty quickly. That it was a high schooler that summoned a darkly armored knight that ended up defeating the villain just added to it all.

Any name that wasn’t a Hero’s or the villain was left out, but the sight of Izuku alone was enough for his mother. And while she was happy that he finally had a Summon, she also berated him in the same breath to not do something that reckless again. He easily agreed, if only to calm her down.

And now, he laid in his bed, exhausted after the events of that day. A day that started normal enough, then went to one which he could easily call the worst day of his life, but then ended up as one of the best days ever near the end. Suffice to say, a roller coaster had nothing on him.

With so much time on his hands and nothing else to do, he finally turned his attention to the mass of notifications he had been itching to examine.

[Notice: With the presence of a Summon, you have been granted access to the Dungeons that litter this world. Search for the entrances, and you will be rewarded.]

[Notice: By increasing your level, new Skills and Spells are now available to you. Visit the Shop to explore these new avenues of power.]

[Notice: You have acquired Skills before you were strong enough to use them. As a result, they may have been granted bonus EXP when completing the Feat once again.]

So if the Feats he accidentally completed before then rewarded any Skills, then any time he did that Feat again would cause them to gain EXP? He supposed it made sense. It was also simultaneously annoying yet useful. He just hoped he got something good that was actually worth it.

As he scrolled down, his eyes almost popped out of his head in surprise.

[Feat- Marothoner: By running for an average of one (1) hour a day for three (3) weeks, you figured out a way to temporarily increase your speed beyond your current limits.]

[You have received Dash- Level 1]

[Calculating EXP]

[Dash- Level 1 has upgraded to Dash- Level 10]

Dash- Level 10: Active Skill

When activated, this Skill consumes 10 MP per second to grant a base 30% increase in AGI with a bonus 5% per every additional level (current: 75%).

[Feat- Analytical Eye: You have deciphered a secret that was previously beyond your knowledge. You can now analyze almost anything with a glance alone.]

[You have received Analyze- Level 1]

[Calculating EXP]

[Analyze- Level 1 has upgraded to Analyze- Level 15]

Analyze- Level 15: Active Skill

By expending 30 MP per use, you can instantly learn and catalog information about your target. The higher the level of the Skill, the more details you can glean with a single use.

[Feat- Know Your Neighborhood: With your analytical eye, you have become adept at reading a variety of maps. Such a skill is always handy, no matter the situation.]

[You have received Cartography]

Cartography: Passive Skill

You now have access to your Map menu. The ability to toggle on a minimap, clock, and weather forecast onto your HUD is also now at your disposal. Go to new places or read an area’s map to fill in your own.

[Feat- Master Chef: By learning to cook, you have learned that a meal always tastes better when shared.]

[You have received Chef- Level 1]

[Calculating EXP]

[Chef- Level 1 has upgraded to Chef- Level 8]

Chef- Level 8: Passive Skill

Any food that you make then give to a party member or Summon will heal the consumer or grant a temporary boost in stats. The stats boosted and duration of the effect is dependent on the Skill’s level and recipe used.

[Feat- Tolerance: By being subjected to pain for an extended amount of time and subsequently pushing through it, you have learned to tune some of that sensation out.]

[You have received Pain Absorption- Level 1]

[Calculating EXP]

[Pain Absorption- Level 1 has upgraded to Pain Absorption- Level 7]

Pain Absorption- Level 7: Passive Skill

While you will still be dealt full damage, the sensations that come with it are dulled by 10% plus 2.5% per every additional level (current: 27.5%).

Skills. He… he actually had Skills. He quickly checked his stat page. The change was realistically minor in the grand scheme of things, but… PROGRESS!

Midoriya Izuku

Class: Summoner

LVL: 4

HP: 130
MP: 160

Stats:
STR: 13
VIT: 13
AGI: 13
INT: 15
DEX: 13
LUK: 14

It seemed like he had boosts for INT and LUK. It was most likely due to his Class, though he still wasn’t entirely sure why at the moment. It seems like he had to experiment.

That’s when he noticed something else near the top of the page. A tab. Specifically one that was not there before. He hurriedly changed the page, easily understanding that it showed the stats of his Summons instead. Well, just the one Summon at the moment.

Summon

Class: Shadow Enforcer- Rank C

LVL: 1

HP: 210
MP: 80

Stats:
STR: 20
VIT: 17
AGI: 14
INT: 13
DEX: 11
LUK: 7

Skills:
Darkness Blade- Level 1

The user can coat their sword in darkness and temporarily increase their attack power. It costs 5 MP per second for a 10% attack increase with an additional 2% with every additional level (current: 10%).

Spells:
Gust

A simple wind spell that allows the user to create a gust of wind from their hands for the cost of 15 MP. Very effective at tripping up lighter enemies.

Aspect:
Shadow- Level 3
Wind- Level 1

Izuku eagerly scanned the page and took in whatever information he could glean. The similarities to his own page was obvious. It was the differences that caught his eye.

“So Summons can have multiple Aspects outside of their main one, but they’re far more limited as there aren’t any question marks like my page,” he began muttering to himself. “Is it just one secondary Aspect, or can they have more than that?”

He desperately wanted to start writing his observations down in a notebook, but his body was too exhausted at the moment to actually go and get one. Oh well. He’d settle for the morning.

“Hmm, it seems that Spells and Skills are quite different after all,” he continued. “While Skills seem to grow in power by using them and leveling them up, Spells seem to be more fixed, like they have only one purpose. Still, that line about knocking over enemies probably means that they have far more utility than you’d first expect.

“And what does it mean by ‘Rank C’?” he asked himself while searching the page more thoroughly. He saw a question mark in the corner and focused on that. It glowed for a second before another menu popped up. There he found a few more bits of information.

Apparently Summons had ranks assigned to them that scaled with their power. The ranks went from weakest to strongest: D, C, B, A, and S. Some games, mostly gacha, had SS and SSS ranks, but Izuku was unsure if they went that high at the moment.

Still, that didn’t mean Izuku would discount the lower ranks. Who knows. A certain skill or ability could be unique to a specific Summon. That said, he had nowhere near enough data or experience with the System to support that idea at the moment.

But now he could actually learn more about it all, a fact that made him positively giddy. After eleven years, he could actually use his quirk in a meaningful way.

Although it seemed that whatever part of his body was keeping him awake up until that moment decided to finally quit as he fell into unconsciousness soon afterward despite his excitement.

Izuku awoke excited, ecstatic, jubilant, especially when he checked his HUD and his phone to confirm it all wasn't some dream. Of course, that positive attitude was quickly shoved out of the way when an alarm meant to signify one thing caught his attention.

School.

He desperately didn’t want to go. He actually almost took his mother up on her offer to stay home that day, but Izuku knew that it would just delay the inevitable. He would rather bite the bullet and get it all over with immediately than to just sit in his room and be afraid of what could be waiting for him.

So as he made his normal trek to Aldera High School, he mentally prepared himself for whatever would come his way. Insults, condescending attitudes, and anything else he was used to.

He… did not expect what was waiting for him.

Instead of the harsh whispers he heard in the hall, only silence accompanied the normal shuffling and the opening and closing of doors. Instead of some bully-of-the-day approaching him for one reason or another, it seemed like people were actually avoiding him. And when he sat down at his desk, no one said a word to him. Not even Bakugou, surprisingly enough.

Even the teachers were being weird. No one called him out for anything, even his mumbling. Granted he was keeping that under control most of the time, but still.

Suffice to say, it was… unnerving.

The only difference between that moment and yesterday was that he had proof of his quirk, and he had saved Bakugou. The second fact would make one think that the blonde would become, somehow, increasingly confrontational and aggressive, but he barely acknowledged Izuku’s presence.

No one followed him after he left the school either. It was honestly the most peaceful day of school that Izuku had ever had.

Regardless, he decided to push the strangeness out of his mind. He had a long afternoon ahead of him after all.

With his mother’s permission, Izuku was on a mission. Not in a childish sense mind you, but to find Dungeons.

Izuku had made sure to read and reread the notifications he read last night as well as the additional information in his Help menu throughout the day to make sure he fully understood it all. The system in place for them was actually fairly simple.

There were two types of Dungeons: Daily and Named. The entrances to Daily Dungeons, or just normal Dungeons, appeared randomly and refreshed every day. From what he understood, Daily Dungeons scaled with his Level and the strength of his Summon(s). The more powerful he became, the more difficult the Dungeons that would appear. And after he completed one, they would disappear until a new one popped up somewhere else the next day.

Named Dungeons on the other hand never refresh, and once beaten, never go away. If he so chose, he could always go back to the entrance to any Named Dungeon and simply enter. The difficulty was also apparently set in stone as well. This was a good thing in Izuku’s mind as there may be obstacles and challenges that he may not be able to overcome as soon as he stumbles across them.

Now, obviously Izuku would go exploring to find a Dungeon, right? The correct answer would be “apparently not” as Izuku received a notification the moment he finished reading the page on Dungeons in his Help menu.

[Notice: You have started Quest: The Journey Begins]

[Your Quest Log has been updated]

Izuku wanted to slam his head into the desk the moment he read it. Don’t misunderstand, he was overjoyed to have some form of tutorial. No. He was just annoyed that it took him eleven years to finally get some of the basic RPG elements like a damn Quest Log. When he actually went in to look at it, he was presented with this.

[Quest: The Journey Begins]

[Objective- Complete Tutorial Dungeon (tracking location)]

Reward: Bonus EXP, one (1) random D-Rank item, Daily Dungeons Unlocked]

Anyways, he thankfully didn’t need to search high and low to find what he assumed to be the tutorial Dungeon as the Quest he had received set a marker on his Minimap. The Map itself was fairly handy as he could set markers of his own and even name them. A perfect tool to set reminders in his opinion.

Said quest marker was also the reason why he was standing across the street from the playground he played in when he was a child. Izuku honestly didn’t know what to feel about that. One could say it was where his journey started all those years ago. And now he was back there for a new start as well.

He pondered the phrase “haste makes waste” for a moment before ultimately concluding that he had waited long enough. His mother, while hesitant and fearful of what he might face, easily understood his feelings on the matter. If even the anxious Inko approved, he felt his decision was the right one.

Izuku sighed one last time before he walked across the street to the playground itself. Several parents raised their eyebrows upon seeing the teenager dressed up in a green tracksuit, but they left him alone when he followed the path to a slightly more remote area. Thankfully the System that his quirk seemed to run on made the entrance outside of public view. Sure, someone could still spot him before he entered, but as only he could and whoever joined his party could see the entrances, it would look like he simply disappeared.

Izuku took in the ornate door frame that surrounded the swirling vortex that would take him to the Dungeon for a moment before taking a deep breath. With his nerves as calm as they could be, he stepped through and disappeared from sight.

Chapter Text

The trip was instantaneous. It was as if the entire world changed between steps. Well, actually that was what happened now that he thought about it.

He shook his head as he needed to focus on his surroundings.

He surveyed the room around him with no small amounts of awe. The design was fairly basic, just a small room with walls, floor, and ceiling made of slightly uneven stone bricks with ivy and moss dotted around every so often, but it was something entirely new to him.

The number of possibilities for environments and monsters that resided within the Dungeons had distracted him all day. Massive sprawling caverns and caves, deep forests and jungles, icy tundras, and so many more that he had experienced through the games he’s played. With all of that in mind, he was slightly underwhelmed at the moment. It was the tutorial Dungeon, so it made sense that there wasn’t anything extravagant as of yet. There was a sort of beauty with the simplistic design he’s seen so far.

Regardless, Izuku casted those thoughts aside to focus on what was happening in the moment. Another cursory glance revealed that there were no monsters. There was a doorway however.

As he walked through, he was met with another room much like the previous one. The only difference was the multitude of pedestals that lined the walls. He also saw that the center of the room was raised slightly in comparison with the rest. When he stood atop it, a notification popped up on his HUD.

[You have begun the Tutorial Dungeon.]

[Notice: It is dangerous to proceed without being properly equipped.]

[Please select your weapon.]

Once he read it, the numerous pedestals began to glow a variety of colors as various weapons began manifesting atop them. Several types of swords, bows, and spears were the most prominent, but there were also axes, maces, and even shields. The greenette didn’t think a shield could be considered a weapon, but greater defense definitely had its own appeal.

He walked over to the swords and began to examine them. After some time being unable to gleam anything on his own, he used [Analyze] to see if there was anything special about it.

[Broadsword: Balanced and easy to learn. Not the most powerful of blades, but it can be quite versatile when wielded properly.]

[Would you like to select this weapon? (Note: you can switch to another weapon at any time.)]

He let out a sigh of relief. “Okay, so it’s not like I’m choosing a class. I guess this must be a way to test out different weapons to see what works best for me. Cool,” he muttered as he began to survey the rest of his choices.

Minutes passed as he went one by one in an attempt to pick what he thought best suited him.

Eventually, he found himself near the shields. Again, he saw the appeal. With one, he could more easily protect people from Villains, or even his own Summons from monsters, but it just didn’t seem right. It was almost as if something was missing.

That’s when he spotted a set of gauntlets. He used [Analyze] again.

[Gauntlets- Armored fists capable of acting as both the sword and the shield. With the added weight, they’re perfect for grappling and punching on top of blocking and parrying.]

He wasn’t sure what drew him to them, but he picked them up almost immediately.

[Player has chosen: Gauntlets]

With the newest notification, the light that had been bathing the multitude of weapons disappeared. He nervously glanced around until the weight of the gauntlets left his hands. He looked back down only to find them now equipped. He didn’t even need to use [Analyze] for another notification window to pop up.

[Iron Gauntlets- Basic but sturdy gauntlets capable of helping you take hits and dish them back out harder.]

[+1 STR, +1 DEX]

Izuku blinked before taking a few test swings with his new equipment. He was clumsy and obviously needed some form of training, but he felt stronger just wearing them.

Another door on the opposite side from where he entered appeared. Without much hesitation, he made his way over to it.

As he crossed through the threshold, he was met by his first ever monster.

[Slime: Level 1]

The creature didn’t seem to notice as Izuku entered, and that was just fine with him. With years of honed gamer instinct, Izuku snuck around on the other side of what he thought were the creature’s eyes and waited for the perfect opportunity to strike.

Seconds later, he jumped out with a battle cry that seemed to stun it long enough for him to slam his fists down on the gelatinous creation. Izuku was surprised that it simply exploded into a pile of goo, but then realized that it was the first monster in a tutorial Dungeon. It obviously wasn’t going to be able to stand up to him.

[You have defeated an enemy. Calculating EXP.]

After getting over his shock at the slime simply exploding upon contact, Izuku felt much better about himself. The EXP notification made him positively giddy too. He knew the emotional effect it had on him would diminish with time, but that just meant that he had to enjoy the feeling to its fullest until then.

Regardless, he surveyed his surroundings once again and spotted a corridor. As he walked down it, he was met by a few more slimes that faced a similar fate to the first.

His good mood ended when he reached the end however. Standing in the next room was some sort of tiger monster. Its back currently turned to Izuku as it simply seemed to be walking around the room.

[Analyze]

[Saber-Toothed Tiger (Wind): Level 4]

Izuku was then presented with a stat page. It wasn’t complete as he was told that he didn’t have enough information in some areas like Skills, but he did have a good grasp on its stats. Higher AGI and STR, but not much in the way of VIT.

[Warning: Strong enemy detected.]

[Summon deployment recommended.]

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” he muttered in agreement as he moved over to the Shadow Enforcer’s stat page. He was hoping to find a button or prompt or something, but he didn’t see anything like that.

“Come to think of it, there wasn’t a prompt to dismiss it either. I just told it to do so, and it did it.” With some further consideration, he decided to try his idea out. “Deploy Shadow Enforcer!” he called.

Just like before, the Summon pulled itself out of his shadow before it stood up to its full height.

Izuku looked on with some amounts of awe at the display. He was quickly pulled from his thoughts when he heard a roar ring out. He turned to see the tiger from before facing him.

“Ah crap. The noise,” he muttered with fear at his realization.

The tiger roared again, putting its namesake teeth on full display. Instead of large and sharp fangs however, Izuku swore he could see actual swords in their place.

“Ohhhh, it meant that literally.”

That’s when the monster chose to attack, running at full speed towards the Summoner and his Summon.

Fortunately for the greenette, the Shadow Enforcer stood between them and stopped the tiger in its tracks as the knight held open the monster’s maw. Izuku saw a small yet sizable chunk of the second health bar on his HUD be removed the second the two clashed. Given how much stronger the Summon was compared to him, HP specifically, Izuku pushed all other thoughts to the side and focused on survival. And the best way to do that at the moment was to capitalize on the opportunity the Shadow Enforcer was giving him.

Dashing around the armored warrior, he drove his gauntleted fist into the closest eye to him. This seemed to stun the creature as it yelped. With the tiger distracted, the Shadow Enforcer pressed its advantage and pulled up to bring the creature airborne. When that was done, the knight then grappled the underside of the beast before slamming its back into the hard stone floor.

The Saber-Toothed Tiger let out an even louder yelp than before with a shrill whine to accompany it. In a panic, the Tiger managed to let itself loose from the Summon’s grip and slipped away to the other side of the room.

The Shadow Enforcer quickly stood and prepared itself for further combat. Izuku brought his own fists to bear unsuredly as the Tiger opened its maw once again. Instead of charging however, a small, shining green ball appeared before it was fired at Izuku.

The greenette panicked and dove out of the way in an attempt to dodge. It worked, mostly. The ball grazed his arm, small amounts of blood now dripping from the small cut that had appeared.

The Shadow Enforcer seemed to take offense to this and charged the monster. The Saber-Toothed Tiger wasn’t able to react to the upper-cut in time as it suddenly found its head snapped back. The Summon then followed it up with a small from both of its armored fists, sending the monster to the ground.

The blackened armored form of the Summon then jumped back and prepared for another charge… but it never came.

Looking at the creature, Izuku could see it beginning to dissipate into nothing. As that happened, a notification came into view.

[You have defeated an enemy. Calculating EXP.]

[Level Up!]

[You have gained an item.]

Izuku smiled as he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding in.

“That… was intense. I guess I’m going to have to get used to that though.” He then glanced over at the Summon that was now slowly beginning to regain the lost HP. “And it’s not fair to you if I let you do all the work.”

The Shadow Enforcer turned its head to look at Izuku before walking over to him. It extended its hand, only waiting a second before Izuku took it and was pulled up. The Summoner gazed upon his Summon for a moment before speaking again.

“I never really thought about it before, but you’re really intelligent. I mean, just now you block, countered, and even grappled that monster with barely any commands from me. I didn’t even say anything actually. And the slime villain, you immediately took in the situation and then instantly created a plan to defeat him. I wonder what else you could do.”

He cut himself off when he noticed that the Shadow Enforcer wasn’t looking at him anymore. Instead, it was staring at a new doorway that lead further in. Glancing back up at his Summon, Izuku nodded with determination before walking towards it, the towering knight only a few paces behind.

As the pair continued walking, a loud bang rang throughout the room. Looking back, they could see that the door they had used had slammed shut.

Knowing what would most likely happen next, Izuku began glancing around the room to where the new enemy was. He didn’t need to wait long as a hole opened up in the ceiling and dropped the monster in question.

It was large, easily several feet taller than even the Shadow Enforcer, with a rotund belly, and sickly green skin. It was also covered in thick armor plates that were attached and hanging on via rope on its arms, legs, and torso. The monster lifted its helmeted head and smiled evilly down on the pair with crooked, rotting teeth. Izuku used his skill on it almost instantly.

[Boss- Goblin Lord: Level 7]

The Goblin Lord shifted its stance as it brought out a large battle axe. Izuku gulped.

As the boss monster began to lift it in preparation, the Shadow Enforcer grabbed its Summoner and bolted to the side. A crash sounded the impact of the axe a moment later. As the Goblin Lord attempted to pull it out from the ground, the Summon set its Summoner down before charging in.

Izuku watched on in awe for a moment before shaking his head. Now wasn’t the time to simply watch from the sidelines. He too charged in after his Summon, but both were stopped dead in their tracks when their fists collided with the monster’s armor.

A loud *CLANG* rang out as their fists bounced harmlessly off the armor plating. The pair pulled back as the boss swiped at them with the hand that was left unoccupied. As they retreated, the Goblin Lord finally managed to pull its axe from the floor and hefted it to a position where the monster could best use it.

The Shadow Enforcer charged in once again. The boss replied with a roar before it slashed its axe down once more. Unfortunately for the Goblin Lord, its large, lumbering frame made it easy to predict its movements. Add onto the fact that it didn’t seem to learn that repeating that same attack was a terrible decision on its part, and saying it left an opening was an understatement.

The fully-armored knight used the opportunity to its full advantage as it dove in for another attack. It struck the armor plate again, but the Goblin Lord didn’t even seem to budge. Another punch revealed that the third time wasn’t going to be the charm. The Summon immediately pulled back to avoid any of the Goblin Lords attempts to attack or subdue the pest it was faced with.

All the while, Izuku nervously stood back as he observed the situation. “The armor’s too thick for us to do anything. And even if one of us manages to hit in between the plates, there’s no guarantees that we’ll do any significant damage. If we could get rid of the armor…” he trailed off as he spied the ropes holding the armor to the monster’s body.

“That won’t be any good either. Neither of us have any swords to attack with. Stealing its axe is an option, but it’s way too big for us to wield properly. Oh, why did I choose gauntlets as my starting weapon?” he said with a sigh.

With the Shadow Enforcer almost expertly dodging the Goblin Lord’s attack, and thus keeping the boss’s attention on it, Izuku felt comfortable enough to dig through his menus to see if there was something he could potentially use.

His eyes scanned over his inventory page before moving on to the stats page before he stopped completely. He hurriedly switched back to his inventory to spot a few items that had not been there before.

First and foremost were Jelly Blobs, what seemed to be a common drop for Slimes which made sense. What really got his attention was the only other item sitting there.

[Tiger Fang Saber- The fang of a Saber-Toothed Tiger reforged into a proper blade.]

[+2 STR]

He immediately pulled the weapon from his inventory and began inspecting it. The blade itself was curved like its namesake fang. Izuku thought it resembled a shortened and widened katana.

He shook his head. What it looked like didn’t matter. With its high attack stat, the weapon should easily be able to cut the rope holding the armor together to strings. But with how unsteady his hands felt, he knew he couldn’t do it himself. His Summon on the other hand…

He was broken from his musings when the sound of another crash reverberated through the room. He looked over to the battle that was going on only to feel his heart sink in his chest slightly.

The Shadow Enforcer seemed winded, its armor dented in a few places. It seemed that the stalemate wasn’t as stable as he initially believed. He needed to act. In fact, his feet didn’t even give him a chance to make the decision as, before he knew it, he was charging at the pair with a [Dash] and a defiant, wordless yell.

The Goblin Lord must have been surprised or confused at the action as it quickly looked over at Izuku. The Shadow Enforcer did as well, but its attention was drawn away from the scene when Izuku threw the sword towards the Summon. The knight caught it by the grip as it heard a command from its Summoner.

“GO FOR THE ROPE!” he called out as he charged the Goblin Lord himself.

The Summon understood almost immediately. Its darkened form quickly yet quietly slid itself behind the boss and waited for a chance to strike. The knight didn’t need to wait long before the set of ropes around one of its shoulders was completely exposed.

[Shadow Enforcer used Skill: Darkness Blade]

The silver blade darkened upon the skill’s activation mere moments before the Shadow Enforcer slashed at the Goblin Lord, purple blood now spewing from the new wound on its upper back.

The Goblin Lord roared in pain and surprise as it turned to look at its assailant. The boss was so preoccupied with the knight that it didn’t stop Izuku from getting in close and punching the area that had just been exposed.

Caught between two nimble foes, the Goblin Lord couldn’t do anything to stop the Shadow Enforcer from repeating what it had done on the boss’s other shoulder. The tops of the large plates that constituted as the monster’s torso and back armor fell away and slammed into the ground. As the two plates were still tied together by something that resembled a belt, the Goblin Lord found that it was now stuck in place as the edges of the armor that were on the floor had been wedged into the uneven stonework and the craters it had created itself.

The boss monster attempted to swing at Izuku with its axe, but quickly found that it had been disarmed by the Shadow Enforcer thanks to the deep gash that had formed as a result of the Summon’s attack.

From there, time was all the Summoner/Summon pair needed to bring the massive goblin to its knees. Not long after they did so, the beast was no more as it faded away just like the others before it.

[You have defeated an enemy. Calculating EXP.]

[Level Up!]

[Summon: Shadow Enforcer has leveled up!]

[You have gained two items.]

Izuku breathed a sigh of relief as he fell onto his butt. To say that he was exhausted was an understatement, but he also felt happy.

“But man, that thing was tough. Maybe it's because I was level four when I entered, not to mention that I had a Summon on my side. I suppose that makes sense. I just hope that the Daily Dungeons aren’t this hard,” he moaned to himself between deep breaths.

After taking a few minutes more to recover both physically and mentally, Izuku passed through what he hoped was the final doorway because, to be honest, he was starting to get tired of the Dungeon.

He was mildly surprised to see what looked to be a stone coffin situated in the center of the room. Around it was a moat of flowing water, but the stream seemed tainted if the purple tint was anything to go by.

With nothing else in sight to note of, the pair began to approach the casket. They walked over the small bridge over the tainted stream until they reached their destination. With nothing left to do, and no small amount of curiosity on his part, Izuku laid his hand upon the casket.

He immediately recoiled when a bright light suddenly appeared. When it finally subsided, he took note of the clean stream of water that now ran around them.

[By defeating the monsters that resided here, you have lifted the corruption that had settle upon this holy grounds]

[You have completed Tutorial Dungeon: Tomb of Heroes.]

Izuku startled. “Th-this was a Named Dungeon? I… I guess that makes some sort of sense, but still…” He stopped upon seeing another notification.

[Notice: Purging the tomb of evil has granted you favor with the dead. As a reward, they seek to impart wisdom unto you.]

Before Izuku could contemplate on what the notification meant, symbols on the wall above the casket began glowing with a pale blue light. As Izuku stared at them, the symbols began to change and morph. His eyes widened when they began to resemble written Japanese. It didn’t take long before the full translation to stare him in the face.

It is not wrong to be weak. When one recognizes that weakness however, it is wrong to do nothing and stay weak.

It took some time for the Summoner to actually contemplate those words. At first, he felt a small amount of anger well up inside of him, but that anger quickly fell away as realized that he was already doing just that. In fact, he had been doing that all his life.

Every day was another day he tried at least something to break the cycle he had fallen into. He was weak, but never did he stop trying. And now, now he could finally become stronger. He could finally do more than just desperately hope that something, anything worked.

He wasn’t going to be the weak Deku anymore. He was the Summoner now.

With that revelation, he turned and walked to the glowing doorway that had appeared with the Shadow Enforcer trailing behind him.

Izuku was taking the long way home. It had been a surprisingly long day in his mind, and he needed some time to decompress. From the odd looks and whispers at school, to the literal monsters he had to face, he was tapped out. So there he was, wandering the streets in his roughed up tracksuit under the setting sun.

As he rounded a corner however, he felt his attention drawn by a putrid smell. Following his nose, he came upon a beach. It wasn’t one that he recognized personally, but going by the sign he spotted and his own mother’s stories, he knew the place almost immediately.

Dagobah Municipal Beach Park.

It was once a beautiful beach like many others, but due to the ocean currents, many pieces of junk and trash began washing up. Soon after, people started dumping their own garbage too. It didn’t take long for the place to be turning into an actual dump after that. Apparently someone did attempt to clean it up at one point, but they were barely able to make a dent even after a month. Since then, the place had been simply abandoned.

“It’s such a shame too. Some of the pictures mom showed me of this place were beautiful,” he said with a hint of disappointment.

The Shadow Enforcer, which Izuku belatedly realized he had still not dismissed, stepped in front of him and began to approach the closest pile of trash. Before Izuku could stop the Summon, it suddenly brought its new blade down and smashed the pile to pieces. It then began attacking random pieces of junk, flattening them down to almost nothing.

Izuku looked on in shock before a smile crossed his face. “So you wanna clean this place too, huh?” he asked rhetorically. “Alright then! This will be the perfect place to train for UAU! You with me?!” he called out to the Summon.

The Shadow Enforcer turned to look at him before he received a determined nod.

“Then let’s get started.”

With that, he walked over and began to pick up a few pieces of trash that Shadow Enforcer had already crushed underfoot and began sorting them out. As he stood up to call out to his Summon, something caught his eye.

[Notice: You have resolved to clean Dagobah Municipal Beach Park with nothing but your bare hands. You have started Secret Quest: Path of the Hero.]

[Secret Quest: Path of the Hero]

[Objective- Clean 50% Dagobah Municipal Beach Park before the UAU Entrance Exams.]

[Reward: Bonus EXP, one (1) B-Rank item of your choice, one (1) point of STR per every 2% of beach cleaned (bonus granted progressively)]

[Bonus Objective- Clean 100% Dagobah Municipal Beach Park before the UAU Entrance Exams.]

[Bonus Reward: 25 Bonus Stat Points, Hidden Reward]

“Oh… Guess that answers that question.”

Midoriya Izuku

Class: Summoner

LVL: 6

HP: 150
MP: 190

Stats (Modifiers):
STR: 14 (+1)
VIT: 15
AGI: 15
INT: 18
DEX: 14 (+1)
LUK: 16

Equip

[Iron Gauntlets- Basic but sturdy gauntlets capable of helping you take hits and dish them back out harder.]

[+1 STR, +1 DEX]

Skills:
Summon

Dash- Level 10: Active Skill

When activated, this Skill consumes 10 MP per second to grant a base 30% increase in AGI with a bonus 5% per level (current: 75%).

Analyze- Level 15: Active Skill

By expending 30 MP per use, you can instantly learn and catalog information about your target. The higher the level of the Skill, the more details you can glean with a single use.

Cartography: Passive Skill

Allows the ability to toggle on a minimap, clock, and weather forecast onto your HUD. Go to new places or read an area’s map to fill in your own.

Chef- Level 8: Passive Skill

Any food that you make then give to a party member or Summon will grant a temporary boost in stats. The stats boosted and duration of the effect is dependent on the Skill’s level and recipe used.

Pain Absorption- Level 7: Passive Skill

While you will still be dealt full damage, the sensations that come with it are dulled by 10% plus 2.5% per every additional level (current: 27.5%).

Spells:
None

Aspect:
Light- Level 2
Shadow- Level 3
Fire- Level 2
???
Wind- Level 1
Earth- Level 1
???
???

Summon

Class: Shadow Enforcer- Rank C

LVL: 2

HP: 220
MP: 85

Stats (Modifiers):
STR: 22 (+2)
VIT: 18
AGI: 14
INT: 14
DEX: 11
LUK: 7

Equip:

[Tiger Fang Saber- The fang of a Saber-Toothed Tiger reforged into a proper blade.]

[+2 STR]

Skills:
Darkness Blade- Level 1

The user can coat their sword in darkness and temporarily increase their attack power. It costs 5 MP per second for a 10% attack increase with an additional 2% with every additional level (current: 10%).

Spells:
Gust

A simple wind spell that allows the user to create a gust of wind from their hands for the cost of 15 MP. Very effective at tripping up lighter enemies.

Aspect:
Shadow- Level 3
Wind- Level 1

Chapter Text

It had been a week since started the secret quest, and it was only now that he began to truly take in the scope of what he was trying to accomplish. Sure, he never thought of cleaning Dagobah as “easy”, but it was only just hitting Izuku how much trash there was.

Thankfully he did have a little bit of help.

“Glad to see that you’re still working hard, Young Midoriya,” Yagi said as he handed the young man a cold bottle of water.

Izuku gave his thanks as he opened the beverage and drank it greedily. The Summoner let out a pleased sigh before replying. “I have to. The bonus points into STR alone make this worth it. Then there’s the other rewards. I’ll need it all and more to make it into UA.”

Yagi nodded. “I’m glad you’re taking this seriously. This kind of training may not change your body itself, but the amount of discipline it will take will be a good indication of your future. But that’s enough about that. Have you figured anything else out since we last talked?” the skeletal man asked. He grinned at the excited look in the greenette’s eyes.

“Oh definitely,” he said enthusiastically as he began to stand up. He paused when he realized that his backpack was now being held out to him. He looked up to see the Shadow Enforcer staring down at him. “Oh, thank you,” he said with a polite nod as he reached in and pulled out a notebook.

“I guess I’ll start on him,” Izuku clarified as he gestured to his first Summon before he began reading over his notes. “The most important thing I found was that he seems to be fully sentient. It can make decisions on its own and follows commands to the best of its abilities unless I’m in danger. Not only that, it seems that I don’t need to always order it to deploy. Mom’s really happy for the extra set of hands around the house. Although I did need to specify to not suddenly jump out in public,” he tacked on with a nervous expression.

Izuku then perked up. “Another thing I saw was that its growth is very different from my own. When we went into our first Dungeon a week ago, I was level four while he was only level one. After going into that first Name Dungeon and one or two Daily Dungeons a day, I’m now level eight, while it's only level three.

“The thing is, he seems to gain more stat points per level up than I do. So even though it’s five levels below me, it still has about the same amount of stats that I do. Although, as I level up further, the amount of EXP I’ll need to level up will start increasing exponentially. On the other hand, the Shadow Enforcer needs a lot more EXP from the start, but I don’t think the amount needed changes much if at all so far. If the pattern holds, then It’ll become much more difficult for me to level up, but much easier for any Summons I gain thanks to me being able to fight stronger monsters.

“And that’s only the beginning!” he exclaimed as he turned to look up at his idol who was only blinking down at him. “O-oh, I was rambling again, wasn’t I?”

That seemed to shake the blonde from whatever stupor he had fallen into. “Yes, you were, but it was quite informative. I was just surprised at how much you’ve already discovered. You’re really amazing,” he claimed.

Izuku’s face exploded into a blush at the compliment. He attempted to stutter something out, but he gave up after a few tries.

After a few moments, the Symbol of Peace spoke once again. “So, what else have you found?”

That question alone was all Izuku needed to talk for hours on end.

Izuku was packing up his stuff at the end of yet another school day with the only thing happening was just school and people whispering about him. Apparently some people had spotted him going to one place or another to do Daily Dungeons, but other than that, nothing.

Seriously, after two weeks, he fully expected someone to start doing one thing or another to bully him again. The fact that nothing had happened yet was honestly starting to unnerve.

He continued to pack up while various conversations droned around him with his main worry Bakugou having just left. The peace was broken when someone slammed their fist on to his desk.

Izuku, startled, quickly turned to the one who had approached him.

“You must think you’re real special, huh Deku?” the random classmate said threateningly. Honestly, Izuku couldn’t remember anything about the guy other than he was a bit of a jerk. That label fit most of the people he went to school with actually.

It was only then that the statement registered in his mind. “Wait, what?” he asked, his utter confusion overpowering his anxiety at that moment.

“You heard me! Walking around like you own the place! You must think you’re some bigshot now.”

Izuku blinked, the sheer absurdity of the situation causing his mind to stutter. “I- what?” he asked incredulously.

“Oh, so I’m right, huh? You might have a quirk now, but that doesn’t change what you are, you hear me?!” the classmate exclaimed as he began closing in with sharp claws now growing from his fingertips.

Izuku felt himself step back out of instinct until his back hit something. Fearing he was being boxed in, he quickly turned his head to see who was behind him. When he did, he was met with a familiar set of armor.

Shadow Enforcer was glaring down at the aggressive classmate with an obviously threatening aura. Said classmate, upon realizing that the towering Summon was now present and looking right at him, took a step back out of fear.

As he did so, the words that Izuku had read at the end of the Tomb of Heroes came to the forefront of his mind. After taking a calming breath, Izuku straightened his back and let himself glare as well.

“You’re right. At the end of the day, I’m still the same nerdy Hero fanboy that I was a few weeks ago. But that doesn’t mean that I’ll let you keep pushing me around,” he said with conviction radiating off of him.

Izuku then turned to gather the rest of his stuff before he started walking out. “Dismissed” he stated firmly, his Summon following his command without hesitation and retreating back into his shadow.

As he exited, he hadn’t noticed the eyes of one of his classmates shining in awe and a certain spiky-haired blonde listening in from just outside the room.

Halfway home, Izuku’s nerves took control once more as his breathing became more erratic and his legs turned to jelly. Leaning against the side of the alley he found himself in, he took deep, calming breaths and attempted to focus his mind on something else until he found a new notification.

[Feat- Courage: Despite your fear, you have faced a number of trials that have been laid out before you. Your spirit has grown from your latest encounter.]

[Aspect: Light- Level 2 has been upgraded to Aspect: Light- Level 3]

[Aspect: Earth- Level 1 has been upgraded to Aspect: Earth- Level 2]

Izuku chuckled to himself mirthlessly. “I don’t feel courageous,” he muttered to himself. He let out a sigh.

Shadow Enforcer suddenly appeared and laid a hand on his shoulder in what seemed to be concern. Izuku waved the Summon off.

“I’m fine. Though I don’t think I’ll be doing any training today. And I don’t exactly want to go home just yet either,” he commented. He stared into the helmet of the Summon where he assumed the eyes were with an unspoken question. The knight nodded and retreated into his shadow once more.

Izuku pushed himself off of the wall a few moments later and began walking once more.

He wandered for some time without a true purpose or goal. All the while he just let his mind think of anything and everything. His quirk, his goals, etc. It felt… nice to just let his mind wander like that.

As he let his legs carry him, he suddenly found himself in a familiar place. Green eyes scanned the old playground, the same one he went to weeks prior on his first excursion into the deeper parts of his quirk. The same one he played in so long ago as a small child.

At that thought, a half-forgotten memory came into focus within his mind.

“I wonder if it’s still there,” he said unconsciously as he turned to the nearby woods.

It had been quite some time since he had last been there, but he hadn’t found any difficulty in navigating the forested area. As he kept walking he began to hear a familiar stream. When he found it, he began following it down until he came across what seemed to be a random log. Another memory resurfaced, one that took place before everything seemed to go wrong.

“Kacchan! Wait up! You could get hurt!” a young voice called out. Izuku was running to catch up to his bombastic friend.

“I’ll be fine! Heroes always win after all! As if I’d let some small little creek scare me!” the blonde child claimed as he began to walk across the log to the other side without hesitation.

Izuku and two others watched on with trepidation, the trio watching their courageous leader conquer what seemed to be a great trial.

Halfway through however, the young blonde slipped and fell off the log. Izuku, worrying for his friend’s safety, immediately forgot whatever fear he held within his heart and charged down into the creek.

“K-Kacchan, are you okay?!” he exclaimed as his feet met water. After taking a few steps forward, the blonde boy began pushing himself up. When Izuku got close enough, the blonde’s red eyes stared up at Izuku’s green with an emotion the boy couldn’t identify.

Izuku extended his hand out to his friend. “You didn’t hurt your head did you?” he asked with genuine concern.

The spiky-haired boy blinked up at Izuku with that same unidentifiable emotion for a few minutes more until he decided to push himself up from the ground. “I’m fine,” the blonde stated harshly.

After that day, Bakugou Katsuki became distant to Izuku. The verdette honestly didn't know why either. Of course, his younger self couldn’t think on it for long as he was declared quirkless later that week. That’s when the blonde truly turned on Izuku.

But now that he was thinking back on the memory, something didn’t exactly feel right. That look in his eyes, if Izuku was remembering correctly, then he swore it seemed like Bakugou had come to some sort of… realization at that moment. What that realization was, the Summoner couldn’t guess.

He shook his head to dispel the thoughts and continued walking deeper into the forest. The log wasn’t even his goal anyways.

A few minutes later, he happened upon a small clearing with a large tree planted at the center. The “Bakugou Agency Secret Base” they called it. It wasn’t anything formal, especially since bringing something there would have been a bit too much for children their age, but no one was ever there to begin with. What better place to establish a secret base? And from what Izuku could tell, no one had been there for a long, long time since.

He walked forward to the lone tree and rested his hand on it.

“Maybe I could bring some Summons here to train later on. Raw power’s cool and all, but practicing techniques and strategies can only help.”

After a few more moments just enjoying the peaceful atmosphere that such an area provided, he realized that it was starting to get late. As he began to leave however, he noticed a small glowing orb floating above the ground.

Cautiously, Izuku began to approach it. He slowly reached out his hand to touch it, but it felt like it wasn’t even there. He would’ve tried again, but the orb suddenly disappeared. That’s when a familiar portal opened up. At the same time, he saw that he received a notification.

[Notice: Named Dungeon Discovered!]

[Tranquil Meadows: Peace put to Flames- Recommended Level- 20]

Izuku blinked before glancing at his own stats. He was at a solid level nine at the moment with his only Summon currently at level four. Suffice to say that he wasn’t going to be challenging it any time soon. He’d certainly keep it in mind however. Any chance he could take to get stronger, he’d take it.

Ukuna Nene was walking home after making a stop at the nearby convenience store to stock up on some snacks. She’d need to take care to hide her own from her little brother and sister. She loved the two to death, but they really needed to stop eating her stuff, especially her favorite pocky.

As she passed by the old playground, she spotted someone exiting the forest nearby. In the evening light, it took her a few moments to recognize the familiar uniform from her school. Any other thoughts she had suddenly stopped once she spotted exactly who it was.

Nene quickly hid behind a nearby sign, one of her hands darting out to bring her floating silver hair under control.

She cautiously peered back out to see him calmly walking down one of the streets in a different direction from where she was going. As he continued walking, she swore she heard him saying something about quest rewards, whatever that means. After waiting a few more moments to leave her sight, she finally relaxed once again.

She let out a sigh. “What was Midoriya doing out there?” she idly wondered to herself.

It couldn’t have been anyone else other than Midoriya Izuku after all. She had seen him around a lot in the past two years. Even more so now that they shared a class. Most everyone called him a wannabe or a liar for one reason or another, but she never got that vibe from him after every time the silver-haired girl interacted with him.

What she did discern was that he was a bit headstrong, but he had a heart of gold that he wanted to put to good use saving people. Honestly… she admired him for that.

Even so, without any way to use his quirk, she thought he’d just end up washed up somewhere, desperately trying to do one thing or another. Being nice can’t always get you where you want to go after all.

…until everything changed two weeks ago.

The Sludge Villain Incident was the talk of the school. Midoriya saved Bakugou of all people and summoned this awesome looking knight to do it.

Since then, she’s noticed a change in him. It was subtle at first, one less stutter hear or there, but today, he confidently stood up to one of his bullies with the aforementioned giant knight in dark armor at his back staring down said bully before striding out of the classroom.

That was the only time he’s ever done such a thing, but one couldn’t deny that “Deku” had changed. And that fact made Nene wonder…

“Can I change as well?”

Chapter Text

Izuku let out a satisfied sigh as he felt the cold water rush down his throat. After taking another moment to catch his breath, he decided to check up on a few things in his menu.

[Secret Quest: Path of the Hero]

[Objective- Clean 50% of Dagobah Municipal Beach Park before the UAU Entrance Exam]

[13%/50%]

[Bonus Objective- Clean 100% of Dagobah Municipal Beach Park before the UAU Entrance Exam]

[13%/100%]

“Just over a tenth of the way there in under a month,” Izuku commented idly as he scanned over the decent chunk of beach that was open to the world once again. “And since my strength and stamina are tied to my stats, it’s become a bit easier since we started.”

Shadow Enforcer walked up with another few items of garbage, notably among the pieces of trash were an air fryer and a cooking pot that only seemed lightly dented. As the Summon crossed the threshold between the beach and the outside road, Izuku called out to stop them.

[14%/100%]

A notification pinged, letting him know that he received another point in STR. As he stood up to approach the summon, he continued muttering to himself. “And then there’s the added STR points that I get from just cleaning the beach itself. Even if I couldn’t level up, I’d be getting a lot stronger.”

He quieted down a little as he examined the items that he noted before, waving off the Shadow Enforcer to get rid of the rest.

“Hm, just a few hits with a hammer and a good scrubbing, and this pot would be good as new. Not to mention the air fryer. Maybe a second-hand shop would take it.”

“Holy crap! This is what you’ve been doing?!”

Izuku yelped as he dropped the pot with a loud clang. This alerted Shadow Enforcer who rushed to his side within an instant, hands ready to pull its sword from its inventory.

After taking a short moment to recover from the scare, the verdette turned to spot a wide-eyed girl with floaty, silver hairl that he swore he’d seen before.

“Uhm… c-can I help you?” he asked unsurely. Hey, just because he was more sure of himself didn’t mean that he was unflappable.

The silverette blinked a few times before shaking her head. “S-sorry. I, uh, no. I was just… wondering what you’ve been doing after school is all.”

It was Izuku’s turn to blink in confusion. “...what?”

“Ah crap. I’m screwing this all up aren’t I? I knew I shouldn’t have just jumped in,” the girl began rambling off.

Shadow Enforcer relaxed their stance before looking back at Izuku. The verdette noticed this and raised an eyebrow. “What? What is it?”

Shadow Enforcer just turned its head away.

Shaking off the exchange, Izuku decided to interrupt the rambling girl that was supposedly his peer.

“Excuse me,” he called out. Although it appeared that the girl hadn’t heard. The verdette cleared his throat. “Hey!”

That seemed to startle the silverette as she turned to look at Izuku once again.

“Look, I’m sorry for being rude, but I still don’t know who you are and why you’re here.”

The floaty-haired girl took a moment to take a deep breath before responding. “S-sorry. I’m not normally like that. I’m Ukuna Nene. We’re in the same homeroom, but we’ve… never really had the chance to talk.”

The Summoner narrowed his eyes slightly. “Right. So Ukuna-san, what are you doing all the way out here? You said something about what I do after school?”

“Ah, right. That,” she acknowledged as she idly began fiddling with the hem of her shirt. “Everyone’s noticed your change. Not like anyone could ignore- not the point. Anyways, it should be obvious that everyone at school’s been paying a bit more attention to you since the Sludge Villain incident. And, well… you’ve been running around all over the place lately. Some of the bigger gossipers at school have started saying that you’ve joined the Yakuza.”

The verdette sat still as he processed the information and made the connections. The young man groaned in frustration after a few moments. “Crap. I didn’t even think about that,” he lamented as brought his head into his hands.

“Well, it’s not like you were being subtle,” she commented.

“I guess,” he said, slightly muffled before raising his head to make eye contact once again. “But wait, that doesn’t explain why you’re here though.”

“Ah. That’s… well… I guess I was curious. You’ve obviously been training for UA now that I’ve seen the beach,” she said unsurely. She then began shifting her gaze to the side to avoid eye contact as she brushed an errant lock of hair away.

Nene then took another deep breath before continuing. “I was also curious if… you’d… let me join you?”

The two remained silent as Izuku slowly raised an eyebrow at the completely unexpected question. It wasn’t a leap in logic to say that Izuku hadn’t expected anyone to ask him of all people to join in on training. Hell, not many people in his school actually trained now that he thought about it, which just made the question even more outside the realm of possibility.

As the seconds passed, the silverette broke under the awkwardness of the silence and began to speak once again.

“If you don’t want to, that’s fine. I just figured I’d ask in the first place. Not like I’d lose anything by you saying ‘no’. But I also figured that we’d get more done if we paired up. I could’ve asked Bakugou, but he’s… Bakugou.”

“Wait, just- just wait,” he interrupted before she could go any further. Nene complied and watched as the verdette seemed to have an internal conversation before speaking.

“Are you… trying to get into UA or something?” She answered with a nod. “I’m assuming you want to be a Pro Hero too.” Another nod. “Why?”

“What kid doesn’t want to be a Pro Hero when they grow up?” she asked rhetorically.

Izuku had to admit she had a point. “Fair. What I meant was, why are you doing all of this now?”

The silverette turned her gaze to the ground for a few seconds in thought. “Honestly, up until recently, I was ready to just give up. My quirk’s not particularly strong, so I never put much thought into it outside of dreams and fantasies, but now… I want to at least try. I… I want to try so I can make up for my mistakes.”

“Mistakes?” Izuku idly asked.

Nene began to wave him off before she stopped. Her mouth opened for her to speak, but the words weren’t coming out. She took another deep breath to focus herself before continuing. “Part of it is to act as an apology to you.”

Izuku’s head jerked back in surprise. Nene either missed or disregarded the reaction as she merely continued.

“I saw a lot of what’s happened to you at school. I never thought it was right, but I never said anything. I was just a bystander, and I hated it. I still do. I… don’t want to be like that anymore. So I thought that, if I at least tried to be a Hero, then I’d at least be able to start doing what’s right instead of just standing off to the side and do nothing,” she explained in a quiet voice.

She paused as she ran out of things to say. Izuku on the other hand was deep in thought. The way she was acting and everything she went against everything his peers had done up until now. He honestly hadn’t anticipated something like this happening, ever. With that being the case…

“That doesn't mean you have to accept me thou-”

“Okay,” Izuku stated suddenly.

Nene stopped completely and stared at him with wide eyes. “W-what?”

“Okay,” he repeated. “I don’t mind if you join me. If even half of what you’ve said is true, then I really don’t mind. In fact, I’d rather help you all things considered,” the verdette reiterated.

Nene continued staring for a few moments longer before she let out a short snort which preceded a giggling fit. As the fit dragged on, Izuku began to worry.

“Uh, Ukuna-san? Are you alright?”

“Y-y-yes, I’m fi-ine,” she managed to say through her laughter. She continued for a few more moments until it slowed, allowing her to take a deep, calming breath. When she finally regained her composure, she spoke.

“S-sorry. I didn’t mean to- well, I wasn’t laughing at you if that’s what you were thinking. I was just… relieved I suppose. I appreciate it, really,” she said with a soft smile.

“Well, that’s good I suppose,” the Summoner replied as he rubbed the back of his neck. “So, since we’re… partners?” he questioned. Nene nodded in acceptance. “Since we’re partners, what’s next?”

The silverette opened her mouth before pausing once again. Izuku noticed that that was going to be a common recurrence at this rate. He shook his head to dispel his thoughts before she responded. “I… actually hadn’t thought that far ahead. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting you to agree.”

“Ah, right,” Izuku responded lamely. “Then I suppose we’ll start at square one: quirks. What’s yours?” he asked as he pulled out a notebook.

“Oh, yeah, I guess that’s a good place to start,” she readily agreed. “My quirk isn’t anything interesting. Floating Hair does just that, it makes my hair float.”

Izuku blinked as he looked up from whatever he was writing. “Wait, that’s it?”

Nene narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean ‘that’s it’?” he asked angrily.

The verdette threw his hands up in a placating gesture. “S-sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come out that way. I just thought you’d have a bit more information. You know, from experiments and all that?”

It was the silver-eyed girl’s turn to blankly blink. “Experiments?”

Seeing the blatant confusion on his new partner’s face, he explained. “Well, yeah. Sure, your hair floats, but how does it do that? Is it a minor hair manipulation quirk or form of telekinesis? Could you increase the effect and use your hair to fly or just jump really high? Stuff like that.”

Nene’s face began turning red in embarrassment at a realization. ‘Oh my god! I never thought about that! Why didn’t I ever think about that?!’

The embarrassed silverette cleared her throat before speaking. “Well what about you? What do you know about your own quirk?” she said, not realizing her mistake.

“A lot actually. And I’ve barely even scratched the surface,” he claimed as he pulled out another notebook that he specifically used to keep track of her quirk and all related data. Even his and his Summon’s stats. He liked to graph, sue him.

One hour later

“... but of course, that would mean that my quirk runs off of enough power equivalent to a star, which obviously doesn’t make much sense. Anyways, I came to the conclusion that finding out everything about my quirk in such minute details would cause me to have an aneurysm, so I stopped before I could further damage my psyche. Any questions?”

Nene, to be completely honest, had spaced out a few minutes into the explanation. She had tried to interrupt him a few times, she even started having her own one-sided conversation as a matter of fact, but he just kept going. So she seemingly had no choice but to sit there and listen until he completed his… very in depth explanation.

Let it be known that Ukuna Nene learned a very valuable lesson that day.

With all of that in mind, it took her a few moments of silence to realize that Izuku had stopped talking. She shook her head and regained her bearings as his last question rang in her ears.

“Right, I stand corrected. Obviously you’ve done a lot more research into your quirk than I have in mine,” she admitted with a sigh. “Although, I’d recommend not going that far next time.”

Izuku startled at the statement, a thought crossing his mind. “D-did I creep you out?”

Nene blinked before shaking her head. “No, no, you didn’t. It was just… a lot to take in. To be honest, I couldn’t understand a lot of what you said, so I blanked out.”

“Oh, sorry,” the verdette apologized with a bow.

Nene waved him off. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for. Just… try to keep the explanations bite sized next time. I might have good grades, but I still have limits.”

“Right!” Izuku stated, the Summoner genuinely appreciative of the, frankly, valid criticism. “So, do you want me to start over, bite sized this time?”

The floaty-haired girl smiled softly and nodded in affirmation.

“Right. Well, first and foremost, my quirk makes me more akin to an RPG character. How much do you know about that?” he probed.

Nene hummed in consideration for a moment. “Not much. My younger brother likes video games, but other than a few mobile games on my phone, I can’t say I’m much of a fan.”

“Ah, well RPG stands for Role-Playing-Game. In short, you take control of a character, typically the main character called the PC or Player Character, and go on an adventure or do various tasks. Throughout the game you can acquire skills and abilities to aid on your quest or job. That, on top of your own growing ability as the player will allow you to complete whatever objectives lay in your path. Typical RPGs will require you to battle monsters to gain EXP and level up to defeat an even stronger opponent.”

“EXP?” Nene cut in.

“Experience Points,” the verdette clarified. “The more of these points you collect, the higher your level becomes. The more you level up, the stronger you become.”

The siverette tilted her head as she was putting the pieces together in her mind. “So more of this EXP stuff is always better. And how do you get more? You said that these games typically involve killing monsters, so…”

“Well, it’s not the only way, just the most consistent. RPGs usually also have a quest system where, by completing smaller objectives, the player is given certain rewards. EXP is one of the most common of these, so there’s that as well,” the verdette further explained.

“Oh. You must’ve done a lot of quests then, huh?”

Izuku chuckled nervously. “Not really. I haven’t had my quest log long, so I’ve only got a few.”

The silverette blinked in confusion. “Then how have you been leveling up?” she asked as she tilted her head.

“Dungeons,” he stated, much to Nene’s concern. Seeing the expression on his partner’s face, he continued. “My quirk also has the capability of creating these areas called Dungeons that allow me to kill monsters and gain more EXP. These Dungeons can be split into two categories; Daily and Named.

“Daily Dungeons can appear randomly anywhere, and are generally quick to beat. The Dungeons also have a level ranges, so not all of them have the same difficulty. And even with the higher level ones, I’ve never found one above my own level.

“Named Dungeons on the other hand are much bigger than Daily ones and have their own set level limit. The monsters inside are generally around that level with the exceptions like the Dungeon Boss or even a Mini-Boss. The thing is, I don’t know as much about them as the Daily ones because I’ve only found two, and one of them was related to the tutorial.”

“Wow,” Nene remarked with wide eyes.

“Oh, did I- ?”

“No, no. I understood everything just fine. Just… give me a second.”

Izuku nodded as his partner thought over the newest set of information given to her. “So… you’ve also got… Dungeons of your own you can go to to get stronger. I’m just gonna leave it at that,” she said to herself before she straightened at a realization. “Wait, how do you get into these Dungeons in the first place?”

“Oh, uhhh, Named Dungeons have their entrance in a fixed spot that stays even after I beat the Dungeon. The entrances to Daily Dungeons on the other hand appear randomly every morning and disappear upon completion. And before you ask, they haven’t become any rarer, so they don’t seem to be a limited resource.”

“Ah, okay. Wait, then how do you…” she began to ask before she trailed off as something clicked in her head.

Izuku slowly nodded his head at her realization. “Yeah, that’s part of why I’ve been running around so much lately. I haven’t seen a pattern in the places they’ve appeared yet either, so I have to actually go out and look to find one on my current level for more EXP,” he explained before his expression morphed. “Not to mention that I’ve been needing a lot more EXP to level up since I got to level ten,” he grumbled in annoyance.

“Really? Can’t be that bad,” the silverette commented.

Izuku sighed. “Let me put things into perspective for you. It took me just over two weeks to get from level one to level ten. In the two weeks since, I’ve only got up two and a half levels,” he explained.

The gamer novice balked. “Geez. Talk about a curve,” she commented.

Izuku shrugged nonchalantly. “Eh, it’s to be expected. The higher the level, the more EXP is required to level up. If it never changed, then I could just farm off of level one slimes until I max out my own level.”

Nene blinked as she thought once again before nodding her head. “Yeah, that makes sense. So what? Are you going to take me inside of a Dungeon to help you fight monsters?” she asked, partly joking.

Izuku hummed before nodding his own head. “That doesn’t sound like a bad idea. When I chose my class, the description said that my friends and allies were the source of my strength. Maybe I could help you get stronger, making me stronger in the process.”

She froze at his admission. “Wait, you’re serious? Can I even enter a Dungeon?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried it before,” he said before he started walking as Shadow Enforcer entered his shadow, beckoning the girl on. “C’mon. I saw a low level Dungeon on my way here. We can use that to test it out.”

The girl sputtered for a few seconds before sighing. “I guess I did ask if I could join him.” With that, she followed after him.

“Hey, so, I just realized something,” Nene spoke up as Izuku rounded the corner where he saw the Daily Dungeon.

“Yeah?” Izuku probed.

“That knight that you got is a Summon, right? The one you got because of your… class?” she asked with a slight delay to make sure she was using the right terminology.

“Yeah?” he repeated a bit more warily.

“Are you using it to help you clean up the beach?”

The verdette stopped and turned around to look Nene in the eyes. “Where are you going with this?”

The silverette sighed. “Isn’t that illegal quirk use?”

Izuku blinked in confusion for a moment until understanding reflected in his eyes. “Oh! No, it’s not. A… friend of mine was able to talk to the city. So long as I stay within Dagobah, I can use my quirk to speed up the process of cleaning. I’m still putting in work too, so it’s not like I’m forcing Shadow Enforcer, you know?”

“Ah, I get it.” Nene sighed with some relief that her new partner wasn’t going to just get carted off and thrown in jail before he even got the chance to go to UAU. She then cleared her throat to turn the topic back on to what they were there for. “So, where’s the entrance to the Daily Dungeon?”

“It’s right there,” he replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world as he pointed over his shoulder.

The silverette glanced around him to see what he was pointing at only to seen a regular brick wall.

“Uh, Midoriya-kun what are you pointing at?”

Izuku tilted his head. “What do you mean what am- wait…” he trailed off before facepalming. “Of course! Why didn’t I think about that? Of course no one else can see them. There’d be news reports all over the place otherwise.”

“So you just forgot about that, huh?” she retorted to the flustered greenette.

“I just didn’t think about it. You would too if you were in my place,” he said with a pout.

“Eh, that’s fair. So how do you usually get in?”

“Normally I just approach it. Then it gives me a pop-up asking if I want to go in. Then I just hit ‘Y’ for ‘yes’, and then a sort of… door opens up. I walk through, and then I’m in the Dungeon,” Izuku explained as he walked over to bring up the window in question.

“Oh. Neat. How is that gonna help us get me in?” she probed.

Izuku hummed in thought. “Let me try opening it. Maybe you’ll just be able to walk in,” he proposed. Without much of a choice, Nene agreed to the experiment.

The seconds ticked by as she swept her gaze around the empty street. When the area remained devoid of anything stranger or out of place, she then turned her gaze to Izuku.

“You opened the thing, right?” He nodded back in response. “Well, I don’t see it, so that answers that question,” she grumbled out.

He let out a short sigh. “Okay, let’s try something else. Maybe I have a party system now? I’ve tried it before, mostly with my mom, but maybe something’s changed since then.”

The verdette then began scanning his menus looking for just that. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to stand out. He let out a sigh before he noticed that he had an unread notification that was timestamped for over an hour ago.

[Feat- You Are Never Alone: Someone has offered to join you in your journey. Help them grow and succeed, and they will do the same thing for you.]

[Friend and Party menus are now unlocked]

Izuku let out a tired groan that took Nene off guard. “Of course.”

“What’s up?”

“Remember when you offered to help me earlier?” he probed,

“Yeahhhh?” she asked, the shoe now on the other foot.

“Well, I got a Feat for that which gave me access to the party system.” He let out another groan.

“‘Feat’? And wait, isn’t that a good thing?”

“A Feat is when I do a certain action that my quirk rewards me for. Skills, items, etc. And yes, it is a good thing. I just wished my quirk stopped hiding basic functions from me like this.”

“Sounds rough,” she idly commented.

“You have no idea,” he replied as he navigated the new menu.

It was a fairly basic UI. He could add friends into parties, kick people, he could also apparently make sub-parties, and a few more things, but the rest would require him to actually have people in his party. With that in mind, he tapped the [Add Friend], Nene’s name appearing automatically at the top of a buffering list. Deciding to just get it done, he tapped on her name and confirmed the invite.

The silverette next to him let out a surprised squeak after a moment.

“Uhm, Midoriya-kun? Something just popped up in my vision,” she told him.

“What does it say?”

“‘Would you like to join Midoriya Izuku’s (Summoner) party?’ Then it just has a ‘Y’ and an ‘N’ with a slash in between,” she said in response.

“Tap ‘Y’,” he instructed simply.

She glanced his way for a moment before shrugging her shoulders. Then, she tapped the air where he assumed the prompt was.

“Whoa! What is all of this?” she asked in wonder.

Izuku perked up at her reaction. “What is it? What do you see?” he probed, pencil in hand to write down what she saw.

Turns out that she now has a simplified version of his HUD. It didn’t have much in the way of menus, but it was still a treasure trove of new information. He began muttering about what she had told him before he interrupted.

“Hey, whoa. As much as I’d love to figure all of this out, I assume that we’ve both still got a curfew,” Nene proclaimed.

That seemed to shake the greenette out of his thoughts. “Right. Yeah. You’re right,” he agreed before gesturing to the orb that was now present to her to let her do the honors.

The silverette approached the orb and did as her partner explained before, the portal to the Dungeon now available to her.

“This is… weird,” she remarked.

“You get used to it,” Izuku replied as he walked through. Not wanting to be left behind, Nene followed after some slight hesitation.

Nene rapidly blinked her eyes to clear her vision after the disorientation she felt when she stepped through.

“You okay?” she heard Izuku ask in worry.

She waved him off. “Yeah. Like you said, it’s something I’ll need to get used to.” She shook her head before turning to the verdette. “So what now?”

“We get to the end. And to do that, we need to fight monsters,” he explained as he equipped his gauntlets.

The action, whilst cool, sparked a question in the silverette’s mind. “Actually, how am I going to do that? We never really talked about that part.”

Izuku paused before he started going through his menu before a dagger appeared out of thin air. “Here, use this,” he said whilst offering the weapon.

Nene stared at it for a few seconds before tentatively grabbing it. When the dagger was in her hand, she firmly gripped it before giving it a few unsure test swings. “You wouldn’t have anything else, would you?”

The verdette shook his head. “Not unless you want something unwieldy. That Iron Dagger is the only thing I have spare that is best for anyone without any weapons training. You’ll be fine though. This Dungeon’s a level three, so none of the monsters will be much of a threat.”

Nene thought over his words before nodding. He had a point after all. Anything else in her hands at that moment would just be unwieldy. And while she could still learn to be more finesse with her dagger, all she really needed to know as a beginner was “swish, swish, stab.”

“So what kinds of monsters will we be facing?” she asked as she began to follow behind Izuku.

“Slimes mostly. Maybe the occasional Giant Rat. And don’t worry, they don’t bleed. I had that same concern when I started,” he assured her.

It wasn’t long until they happened upon a small group of slimes in the next room. Izuku deployed Shadow Enforcer as extra backup just in case.

“Alright, level one slimes should be an issue. You want to give it a try or watch for the time being?” he asked, giving her the choice to back out.

She thought for a few moments before answering. “I’ll watch for a bit just to see what I’m up against.”

Izuku nodded before charging in. He decked the first slime before they could notice him. It didn’t die on the first hit, but [Analyze] told him it was almost dead. He threw another punch before it could regain itself, the slime monster splattered before the gelatin mass quickly evaporated.

By that point, the rest of the Slimes took notice and began to attack. Nene watched on with some amazement at the display. From what she could tell, Izuku was drawing the fight out in order to work on his environmental awareness. This must have been a common occurrence for him as the Summon next to her seemed completely unconcerned.

As the minutes passed with Nene watching on, she felt something flare up within her. Gripping her dagger, she let out a battle cry as she dashed forward.

Izuku stumbled for a moment in worry at the sound as he feared that she was being attacked. Turning to see her charging however brought a small smile to the Summoner’s face.

Even more minutes passed as the two dodged and danced. Not used to such exertion however, Nene’s breathing became more labored as time went on until she eventually decided to start slashing at the monsters. Izuku began to do the same. It didn’t take long for the pair to dispatch the monsters after that.

When the battle was won, the silverette slowly lowered herself to the floor. She was grateful to her quirk for keeping her hair out of her way thanks to the sheen of sweat that now coated her.

“Are you alright?” Izuku asked.

Nene began letting out a soft chuckle. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m… fine,” she managed to say between breaths. “My legs are gonna be sore tomorrow. I should’ve worked out more,” she lamented.

The verdette chuckled as he began looking through his inventory again. “Yeah, I get that. Didn’t have the best time on my first one. Here,” he said as he offered her a cold water bottle.

The floaty-haired girl gratefully took it before chugging down most of the bottle. She let out a satisfied sigh when she had her fill.

“Neat little trick I learned. I can store things not produced by my quirk inside my inventory. There seems to be a limit on how big the object can be, but I did find out whatever I put in it doesn’t degrade. It’s useful for when I want to save something for later,” he explained to answer her silent question.

“You are officially my new favorite person,” Nene told him bluntly.

Izuku became flustered at the statement.

The pair then descended into a comfortable silence as they rested up for the next room. Several moments passed before Nene decided to break it when she took a closer look at Shadow Enforcer.

“Hey, Midoriya-kun?”

“Hm?”

“Earlier you said that you… class was Summoner, right? Well, how do you summon things?” she asked.

“Oh. I just specify which one, say ‘deploy’, and they’re supposed to just come out,” he replied.

“Right. But how do you get new ones?” she probed further.

“Ah, that. There’s three-ish ways of doing it.” At her confused expression, he continued. “The first two relate to a tab in my Shop menu. From it, I can either use the currency that my quirk uses, or ‘Gold’, and buy a chance to get a random Summon. The second way is similar in that I just use materials to do the summoning instead, which is mostly there to help me get Summons of a particular elemental Aspect should I have the right materials. Those two methods are so similar, which is why I call it ‘three-ish.’

“Anyways, the final method is through taming a monster in a Dungeon,” he finished before a question of his own began to form in his mind. “Wait, why did you want to know?”

“Because I haven’t seen any Summons aside from Shadow Enforcer. Have you tried getting any more?”

“Not yet, no. Mostly because I’m still really only starting out. I can sell materials to the Shop for Gold, but it’s not much. And most of the materials I’ve gotten so far aren’t very high quality or have an Aspect, so using them to try to summon something wouldn’t be worth it,” he answered.

“Have you tried taming something yet?”

“I-” He was about to answer when he suddenly froze in realization. “...no, I have not,” he answered quietly.

Nene blinked. “...do you want to try?”

“...sure,” Izuku answered after a moment as he pushed himself off of the floor. Once he was one his own two feet again, he turned to offer his partner a hand up which she took gratefully.

They walked into the next room and spotted another group of slimes. With a different objective in mind, Izuku slowly walked forward alone with his hands in a placating gesture. As he approached, the slimes began to notice and move towards him.

“Hey there. I don’t mean any harm. I just wanted to- whoa!” he yelped as he dodged a Slime that had decided to attack him.

The rest of the slimes followed suit and began attacking as well. Nene and Shadow Enforcer rushed in to help deal with the small monsters. Several moments later, and all but a single cowering blue Slime was all that was left. Shadow Enforcer stepped forward to go in for the kill, but Izuku stopped it.

The verdette got on one knee and lowered himself to the scared Slime.

“Hey, I don’t want to hurt you. I just wanted to talk,” he reiterated as he slowly stretched his hand out to the sentient blob.

The small monster seemed to be shaking in fear of him, but neither did it run away. In fact, it let the verdette rest his hand atop it. Izuku blinked curiously out how soft yet firm the little monster felt. As the seconds passed, the Slime’s shaking slowed until it stopped completely. Little lines that Izuku assumed to be eyes looked up at him in what seemed to be curiosity.

“If you want, you could join us. You wanna give it a shot?” he propositioned with barely any idea as to what he was doing.

The Slime stilled for a few seconds before it seemingly nodded, albeit shyly.

With it’s acceptance, Izuku moved his hand to where it rested open for the Slime to rest on. The slime jumped into his hand before going up his arm, ending up on his shoulder. Izuku smiled as he scritched his newest Summon.

[Notice: A wild monster has agreed to join you on your journey. New Summon ‘Water Slime’ now available]

[Feat- Tamed: You have tamed a Summon for the first time. You can feel your power growing.]

[You have received Aspect: Water- Level 1]

[Water Slime- Level 1]

The sound of someone yawning next to him drew his attention shortly after. He glanced over to see his party member looking quite tired. He chuckled to himself softly.

“We’ve got a lot more work to do. Why don’t we go home and meet up tomorrow to talk more,” Izuku proposed.

Nene absentmindedly pulled out her phone, slightly surprised to find that she was still getting a signal, to check the time. “Yeah, it’s getting pretty late.”

WIth the pair in agreement, they turned around to leave the way they came.

Chapter Text

“Okay, so, where do we start?” Nene asked as she plopped down next to Izuku to eat her lunch.

It was the next day, and it was safe to say that Nene was at least a little excited about further exploring just what she could do. What she already knew was… weird to put it simply, but also quite nice. Like the map that was permanently affixed to the corner of her vision. The other stuff was going to take some getting used to, but if she didn’t want to see it, she could essentially minimize it. And she found that out after only a few minutes of poking around.

Of course, while all of this was going through her head, Izuku startled in surprise. “Oh, uh, hello Ukuna-san. I wasn’t really… well…”

“I know, it’s a bit weird, but it’ll be fine,” she waved off.

“But everyone else…” he replied quietly as he scanned the classroom of the few remaining classmates.

“Not gonna be much of a problem. They’d learn sooner or later that we’re hanging out now. Why not just get it out of the way?”

Izuku stared at her with mild surprise until a thought crossed his mind. “You seem… different from yesterday,” he stated without much thought.

That got Nene to stop for a moment. “I… am I?” she probed with a quizzical expression on her face.

Izuku let out an awkward cough when he realized that he said that out loud. ‘Oh well. In for a penny-’ “Sort of? It’s just- even after the talk on the beach, you still seemed nervous. But now…” he trailed off, unsure of how exactly to describe what he was seeing now.

“Huh. I guess you’re right,” she agreed as she slumped into her borrowed chair a bit with a thoughtful expression on her face. “I guess… some of the stuff I was worried about just doesn’t matter anymore. I think that’s why I woke up feeling a bit lighter today than usual,” she replied with a shrug.

“Right…” Izuku trailed off before changing the subject. “Speaking of which, how are your legs?”

She let out a short groan. “Still a bit sore, but not as bad as I thought. Now stop stalling,” Nene accused while pointing her chopsticks at him in an attempt to intimidate.

Izuku brought his hands up in a placating gesture before reaching for his notebook. Opposite to him, Nene took the first bite of her meal.

“Well, for starters, I have a new tab dedicated to party members on my status page. And I’m not going to lie when I say it's weird in comparison to the other tabs,” he began.

Nene tilted her head with a curious expression on her face. Izuku continued to answer her inaudible question.

“From what I’ve seen, stat pages usually look like this,” he said as he showed the copy of the stat pages for himself, Shadow Enforcer, and Water Slime. It didn’t take long for Nene to see the similarities. Izuku then flipped the page. “And then this is yours.”

Party Members

Ukuna Nene +0

Quirk: Floating Hair

STR: +0
VIT: +0
AGI: +0
INT: +0
DEX: +0
LUK: +0

Bond Level- 0

The silverette raised an eyebrow. “Yup, that’s different.”

“Right? Anyways from what I know so far combined with some information from the Help menu, I think what this all means is that your stat page displays how your stats have been modified, rather than what they are outright.”

“... pardon?”

Izuku looked sheepish for a moment. “Yeah, it’s not the most straightforward explanation, so give me a second. The short version is that I’m like a video game character. Everything I can do is determined entirely by my stats. Such as, I could work out every day, but if my STR score doesn’t change, then it doesn’t matter. You on the other hand, my quirk seems to act as a boost to your base capabilities, sort of like how armor or equipment can increase my own stats.”

Understanding filled her brightening eyes. “So does that mean that the increase is flat, or does it scale as I get stronger on my own?”

“Probably a flat rate, but I don’t have enough data to know for sure,” he responded in excitement.

“So we need to do some testing first.” Nene let out a groan a second later. “Which means that I’ll have to start working out. Great,” she finished sarcastically.

“Isn’t that kind of what we’re doing already?” Izuku asked.

The silverette bopped him on the shoulder at that crack. “Anyways, the tests are great and all, but how do we even increase them? Do I need EXP like you?”

Izuku nodded his head. “From what I can tell, most likely. Don’t know how much though. And then there’s Bond Level. I’m a bit less sure about that.”

“Ah man. I was just gonna ask about it,” she replied in disappointment.

Izuku turned his gaze away from his notebook and looked her in her eyes whilst wearing a comforting expression. “I’m not saying that we know nothing. In fact, I’ve played a few games with a similar system before. Granted, not all of them were the same, but it’s better than nothing.

“Anyways, games with Bond levels or a similar type of mechanic have an affinity or affection system. Essentially, the more you interact with the character, the more powerful they can become. From bonus stats to new skills or unique weapons. And the rewards only get better the higher the level gets. Of course, those games usually have a bar or some sort of indicator to tell how far you’ve progressed between levels, but we don’t have that. So…”

“Wait, let me get this straight,” Nene interrupted. “The more I like you, the stronger I get?” she asked incredulously.

Izuku blinked as a blush began growing on his face. “I’d consider that an oversimplification, but… yeah, pretty much. Though it might go both ways too, so it’s likely that I’ll have to get closer to you as well.”

“... your quirk is weird.”

Izuku let out an exasperated sigh before raising an eyebrow. “You’re now just figuring that out?” he snarked.

Nene bopped him on the shoulder again.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Nene asked once again as she looked over the knife in her hand once again.

“I know that this Dungeon is at a much higher level compared to the one yesterday, but the better data we have earlier on, the better. Plus, we’ve got Shadow Enforcer and Water Slime at our side, so it’s not like we’re on our own,” Izuku reassured.

If it wasn’t obvious, the moment school had let out for that day, the pair met up and wandered around the general area until they found a strong enough Dungeon to test a few theories. The pair were well aware of the risks, but it wasn’t like things were going to get any easier, Nene reasoned.

“Well, not so much Water Slime,” Nene countered.

“True, but it’ll be easier to power level him.”

The sentient blob squeaked out a rhythm in response. If it was meant to mean something, the silverette didn’t know. She took the resulting silence as a chance to check the Summon’s stat page.

Class: Water Slime- Rank D

LVL: 1

Stats (Modifiers):
STR: 5
VIT: 10
AGI: 8
INT: 9
DEX: 5
LUK: 4

The slime was weak in comparison to both Izuku and Shadow Enforcer, but that was unfair to the newly-tamed monster as it was both at Level 1 and a lower rank than Shadow Enforcer. At the very least it was cute.

Nene broke herself from her musings after a moment. “Well thn, shall we?” she asked the verdette while gesturing to the doorway opposite them.

Some time later, Izuku found himself scribbling away in his notebook as his party member took the opportunity to eat a snack. Shadow Enforcer stood guard in case any monsters decided to approach, while Water Slime sat next to Nene while occasionally letting out squeaks in the silverette’s direction. The small Summon quieted down once the girl offered it a cracker.

‘So it seems that Nene’s damage isn’t dependent on stats alone. Even when she used different knives of varying quality, the amount of damage she did was relatively the same. The only time it varied was when she struck a more heavily armored area or a specific spot to deal critical damage. That mean’s logic still applies, obviously, but as for her damage output…’ “... huh.”

Nene handed off the last cracker to Water Slime before turning to the Summoner. “What’s up?”

“I was just running through everything we’ve learned, and I’ve got two possible answers as to how you’ve been able to keep up,” he answered.

Nene turned to him and nodded to indicate that she was listening.

“First is that, as previously stated, you’re not completely bound by my quirk, and thus the damage you do mostly works based in logic. Armor you do less damage, sensitive areas you do more.”

The silverette nodded again. “That makes sense.”

“The other is that you… auto-leveled is the best I can come up with. The other is that you’re auto-leveled to match whatever area you’re in. That way you can still fight whatever you come across.”

She hummed in thought for a few seconds before sighing. “Yeah, gotta admit, those both sound incredibly vague.”

Izuku let out his own sigh before shrugging his shoulders. “Not much I can do about that. I’d probably go insane if I tried to figure all of this stuff out perfectly. If the pattern holds, I don’t think either of us need to really question it.”

Nene stared at him blankly. “That just sounds like a copout,” she accused.

“Do you have a better explanation?” he asked.

After a moment of silence, she looked away. Izuku nodded in understanding before pushing himself off of the floor and back onto his feet. He then offered his hand to his fellow party member who took it wordlessly.

“Do you want to finish the Dungeon or turn around? We did everything we set out to do already,” he offered.

The silverette stayed quiet for a moment to check her stat page. “Hmm, maybe not. I’ve almost leveled up. Plus, we’re not that far from the end, right?” she asked.

Izuku thought about it before acquiescing. “Fair enough, let’s go.”

A few Red Goblins and Giant Rats blocked their path, but they were easily defeated by the group’s combined effort. The battle was also enough for Water Slime to reach Level 4 as well, which seemed to make the Summon happy.

Once the monsters were finally dealt with and the loot taken stock of, the group made their way into the last room.

All but Shadow Enforcer were startled when the stone door slammed shut behind them. A hellish groan caused them to turn their gazes to the skeleton that stood in the center of the room. It was draped in a cloak with light armor covering a majority of its frame.

The only sign of life the skeleton exhibited was its formerly-empty eye sockets now glowing a threatening crimson. Only when the glow was at its peak did the monster began to move rather suddenly over to the group.

Shadow Enforcer stood in its path to block the blade it had drawn. Izuku took the chance to use [Analyze] on the creature.

[Skeleton Rogue (Shadow): Level 11]

The battle after that was rather fierce. Izuku or Shadow Enforcer would block the blows or stun the monster to allow for the others to get their own attacks in. Unfortunately the skeleton’s rather… thin structure made this difficult at first, but once the party had begun taking that factor into account, the only trouble they had was actually getting the monster to stand still long enough to attack.

At one point, Nene grew frustrated enough to grab the closest thing she could find and lobbed it at the monster. What she didn’t realize was that that thing was Water Slime.

Both she and Izuku were rather shocked and afraid for the slime, but the Summon wrapped itself around and covered the skull it had collided with. This seemed to blind the Skeleton Rough as it clawed at Water Slime quite aggressively. After another second’s hesitation, Shadow Enforcer dealt a heavy blow to the monster. Izuku and Nene followed its lead until the skeleton finally managed to dislodge and throw Water Slime out of the way.

Unfortunately, Nene was in the middle of running up for another strike as this was happening. The skeleton reacted quickly and raised its blade above its skull before bringing it down over her head.

As luck would have it, Izuku was right next to her and managed to react on instinct to pull her out of the way.

The Skeleton Rouge’s forceful strike struck the ground instead, the sword it wielded momentarily stuck. That second was all Shadow Enforcer need to run the monster through from behind.

The monster struggled for several seconds before falling limp and disappearing in a puff of smoke.

The room was quiet after that, the only sounds being that of labored breathing from the only humans within the Dungeons. The two were shocked back to their senses when the doors to the room slammed open once more.

It was only then did either realize the position they were in.

Nene looked down to see Izuku’s face, a blush slowly growing across his cheeks. The soft but firm “ground” below her caused her to look down only to realize that she was now laying on top of him. The cherry on top was that she could also feel an arm wrapped protectively around her waist.

“Uh-um…” she stuttered out.

Without word or thought, Izuku let go of Nene, the silverette taking only a moment to fully take stock of the situation before getting up.

Nene cleared her throat. “Thanks for the save,” she said bashfully.

“Oh, uh- you’re welcome.”

Minutes later, the pair were alone once again, sitting on a bench near where the Dungeon’s entrance once was to take a breather.

“Sorry about that,” Nene apologized after a moment. “I should’ve been paying more attention.”

Izuku shook his head. “That’s not your fault. I didn’t see it coming either.”

The two fell into silence once more. The gentle breeze in the air and distant chatter being the only things that were happening around them. Izuku glanced at his party member who had a conflicted expression on her face. He instantly opened mouth to ask what was wrong, but her sighing interrupted him.

“I’m doing this for my siblings, a little brother and sister, and I… They idolize Heroes. I know everyone does, but to them, it feels… different. Mom and Dad are always out of the house at their jobs to support us, and I haven’t been able to spend all that much time with them due to school and other stuff. I love those squirts, but I just…”

“You don’t have to tell me all of this,” Izuku reassured during her hesitation. “This seems personal, and with the Bond levels, I don’t want you to feel pressured.”

“That’s not- okay, its part of the reason I suppose,” she admitted after a moment, “but I also just… wanted to talk about it. Not trying to throw a pity party, but I almost died after all.”

Izuku… gave her that point. He wasn’t even entirely sure they could actually die in Dungeons, but he wasn’t about to try testing it and was sure she didn’t either.

“So, my brother and sister love Heroes, I’m spending less time around them, and Mom and Dad are barely home. Then the teachers start talking about college applications, and I start thinking… ‘what am I even doing with my life?’ I… honestly, I still don’t know for sure, but I said I wanted to try to be a Hero, so I will. It might help me find my answer and…” Nene paused, as if unsure how to continue. “And… maybe those two squirts will look up at their big sister with pride. Am I- is that selfish of me?” she asked.

Izuku shook his head without hesitation. “I don’t think so. There are a lot of reasons to become a Hero, some more selfish and others. Yours? I can only imagine a few being any better,” the verdette said with confidence.

Nene stared at him for a few seconds before a faint smile grew on her face. “Oh, I get it. Not the best reason, huh?” After a moment, she let out a short giggle that made her relief evident. “Thanks Midoriya-kun.”

“Izuku.”

Nene perked up before looking at him in confusion.

The verdette began blushing. He then started rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment as he continued. “I meant that you can call me Izuku. I don’t mind. We’re partners after all.”

Nene sat there and blinked at him for a few seconds before her smile returned. “Sure Izuku-kun. And if that’s the case, then you can call me Nene.”

Izuku nodded. “Alright Nene-san.”

[Ukuna Nene: Bond Level Up]

[Ukuna Nene: Bond Level- 1]

[Feat- The Ties that Bind: You have increased a bond with a party member. These bonds are your strength and theirs to share.]

[Notice: Cartography has been updated. Party members can now locate each other on the Minimap.]

The pair sat in silence as they read the messages that popped up.

Izuku spoke up first. “Should’ve seen that coming,” he said blandly.

Another beat passed before the two each bursted out in a fit of laughter. It took minutes before they were able to calm down enough in order to speak to each other coherently.

“I honestly don’t know what I was expecting. Is there any way to turn that off? Kind of dampens the mood,” the silverette admitted.

“I’ll look into it. The update to Cartography is appreciated though.”

“True,” Nene relented before something else caught her eye. “Huh, what’s that?”

At Izuku’s own question, she pointed him towards her stat page.

Party Members

Ukuna Nene +1
5 Points Available

“‘5 points available’?” Izuku muttered before something clicked into place within his mind. “Oh, your stats. This must be how you increase them! If I’m right, then you should also be able to assign them freely,” he said excitedly.

“So five points per level that I can assign any way I want huh?” Nene mused before smirking. “Hey, Izuku-kun, mind running through what the stats do again? I’ve got a few ideas, but I just want to make sure.”

The verdette nodded emphatically.

Midoriya Izuku

Class: Summoner

LVL: 12

HP: 205
MP: 255

Stats (Modifiers):
STR: 28 (+1)
VIT: 22
AGI: 19
INT: 29
DEX: 19 (+1)
LUK: 21

Equip

[Iron Gauntlets- Basic but sturdy gauntlets capable of helping you take hits and dish them back out harder.]

[+1 STR, +1 DEX]

Skills:
Summon

Dash- Level 10: Active Skill

When activated, this Skill consumes 10 MP per second to grant a base 30% increase in AGI with a bonus 5% per level (current: 75%).

Analyze- Level 15: Active Skill

By expending 30 MP per use, you can instantly learn and catalog information about your target. The higher the level of the Skill, the more details you can glean with a single use.

Cartography: Passive Skill

Allows the ability to toggle on a minimap, clock, and weather forecast onto your HUD. Go to new places or read an area’s map to fill in your own.

Chef- Level 8: Passive Skill

Any food that you make then give to a party member or Summon will grant a temporary boost in stats. The stats boosted and duration of the effect is dependent on the Skill’s level and recipe used.

Pain Absorption- Level 7: Passive Skill

While you will still be dealt full damage, the sensations that come with it are dulled by 10% plus 2.5% per every additional level (current: 27.5%).

Spells:
None

Aspect:
Light- Level 3
Shadow- Level 3
Fire- Level 2
Water- Level 1
Wind- Level 1
Earth- Level 2
???
???

Summons

Class: Shadow Enforcer- Rank C

LVL: 6

HP: 280
MP: 115

Stats (Modifiers):
STR: 33 (+2)
VIT: 26
AGI: 21
INT: 18
DEX: 19
LUK: 10

Equip:

[Tiger Fang Saber- The fang of a Saber-Toothed Tiger reforged into a proper blade.]

[+2 STR]

Skills:
Darkness Blade- Level 2

The user can coat their sword in darkness and temporarily increase their attack power. It costs 5 MP per second for a 10% attack increase with an additional 2% with every additional level (current: 12%).

Spells:
Gust

A simple wind spell that allows the user to create a gust of wind from their hands for the cost of 15 MP. Very effective at tripping up lighter enemies.

Aspect:
Shadow- Level 3
Wind- Level 1

Class: Water Slime- Rank D

LVL: 4

Stats (Modifiers):
STR: 7
VIT: 15
AGI: 11
INT: 10
DEX: 8
LUK: 5

Skills:
Chow Down- Level 2

Allows the user to eat any weakened monster that is below its level to restore health with a chance to provide a temporary buff. Chance and level of buffs increase as the skill levels up.

Aspect:
Water- Level 1

Party Members

Ukuna Nene +1

Quirk: Floating Hair

STR: +2
VIT: +2
AGI: +1
INT: +0
DEX: +0
LUK: +0

Bond Level- 1

Chapter Text

“I must say, you are quite incredible Young Midoriya,” the skeletal man said in amazement as he took in the scenery around him in the afternoon sun.

Yagi Toshinori marveled at how much of the beach the boy had cleared. And within two and a half months at that! Truly astonishing.

The young man began blushing and rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment. “W-well, it's not like I’m doing it all alone,” he deflected.

The blonde man let out a short chuckle. “No, I suppose not. Then again, it was you that doubled your numbers. You got a new Summon and a new friend while I was away.”

Izuku was bashful for a few more seconds before a question entered his mind. “Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask, have you found anyone to take One for All yet?”

The veteran Hero’s grin grew a bit. “As a matter of fact I did. She’ll have to train up her body a bit more before I can transfer it, but that should leave a few months before the entrance exam.”

“Wait, you don’t mean UAU’s entrance exam, do you?”

Toshinori nodded his head. “She was quite insistent, even after I told her that it wasn’t her only option. Not that I mind honestly.”

The conversation was broken when Nene came up the steps with a large tire in her arms, her heavy breathing in time with her steps showing just how much she was exerting to move the object.

“Why- do I have to- do this again?” she huffed out between breaths.

“Nene-san, we both agreed that you actually doing some training was a good idea,” Izuku replied.

“But why- without… stats!” she exclaimed as she heaved the tire into its designated spot for pickup.

Toshinori decided to cut in. “You need to put some muscle on those bones of yours. Young Midoriya has an excuse since he can’t turn off his quirk, but since you can… what was it? Ah yes. Since you can temporarily leave his party without losing your bonus stats, it only makes sense to do this, Ukuna-san.”

Nene grumbled in acknowledgement.

Izuku opened his mouth to comfort her, but a notification interrupted his thoughts.

[Notice: main objective of Secret Quest: Path of the Hero is complete. Distributing rewards.]

[Objective- Clean 50% of Dagobah Municipal Beach park before the UAU Entrance Exams: Complete!]

[Rewards: Bonus EXP. one (1) B-Rank item of your choice]

[Notice: Complete bonus objective for further rewards.]

“Whoa,” Izuku let out without thinking.

Toshinori looked at him in concern. “Is something wrong, Young Midoriya.”

“No, nothing’s wrong,” he said as he shook his head. “I just got a notification that we cleaned half of Dagobah. Got some rewards for it too.”

Nene perked up at that. “Wait, seriously? Didn’t realize we were that far along. So what did you get?”

“A free B-Rank item of my choice and some bonus EXP- which seems to have gotten me up to level sixteen too.”

Toshinori hummed in thought. “If that’s the case, all the more reason to celebrate. I’d say that your Summons can join, but… admittedly, I don’t know if they can even eat.”

Izuku thought for a moment. “Water Slime likes to eat a bit of Nene-san’s snack from time to time, but… I don’t think I’ve seen Shadow Enforcer ever eat.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to at least get them something if Mr. Yagi’s paying,” the silverette proposed.

“Might want to get takeout then,” the blonde muttered to himself before he turned around to head into town, becoming the two teenagers to follow.

“Mmm, these are some good steak skewers,” Nene hummed happily.

It was just the tree humans now as they walked down the street towards the more residential areas. The Summons had dismissed themselves after the skewers were first order. Water Slime had a few pieces, but became few quite quickly after that. Shadow Enforcer just didn’t eat any, leaving an extra serving for the others to take home.

In the middle of their walk, Toshinori spoke up. “So what will you two do once the beach is clear?” he asked.

That brought the silverette out of her steak-fueled thoughts as she watched Izuku tilt his head at the question.

“What do you mean Al- Mr. Yagi?” the verdette corrected.

“Well, once it’s completely clean, you’ll have to do something else to train, won’t you? And with what I remember, this last half is going to go by even quicker,” the disguised Hero reiterated.

That got the teens to stop in blink at the information.

Nene swallowed her most recent bite before answering. “That’s a good point. We’d need to get a gym membership, or at the very least some equipment.”

“And strength training isn’t everything either. You shouldn’t limit yourselves like that,” the older man advised.

Izuku mulled the thought in his head for a few moments. “Maybe we could find a dojo?” he proposed. “I’ve seen places that have attached gyms, or at least have a gym nearby, and we could also learn martial arts too. Actually knowing how to fight properly would help us a lot in Dungeons.”

“Especially you since you fight hand to hand,” Nene chimed in.

Toshinori nodded in approval. “An excellent idea. I’ll even foot the bill, so don’t worry about how expensive it may be. You may also be able to find someone to help you on your extracurricular endeavors.”

While the thought was nice, Izuku didn’t think that that would be likely.

[Notice: You have resolved to further hone your body. You have started Quest: Fighting Spirit]

[Quest: Fighting Spirit]

[Objective- Become proficient in martial arts]

[Reward: 10 Bonus Stat Points]

It had been several days since the decision had been made. Of course, it wasn’t like they wanted to just walk up to any random dojo without preparations. Ergo, Izuku spent some of his free time researching local dojos. There certainly wasn’t a shortage of them, especially with Musutafu’s proximity to UAU’s campus, but that only meant that there was more data to take into account and verify.

Thankfully, the Summoner was able to find one that was both reputable with open slots for students available that was only a short twenty minute train ride away. All the pair really had to do was wait until their next day off from school before going. Which leads us to now, the two teens standing just outside the building in question wearing workout equipment, hopeful that things would work out.

“Are you sure this is the place?” Nene asked as she fiddled with the strap on her bag once again.

“Yup,” Izuku confirmed. “After you?”

Nene smiled at him teasingly. “You’re the party leader, right? Aren’t leaders supposed to lead?”

“Point taken.”

With that, Izuku stepped towards the door and made his way inside, the sileverette following close behind. The pair glanced around the reception area, neither one noting anything particularly special about the space. There was a desk off to the side of the doorway to the dojo proper, but it was currently unoccupied.

They didn’t have to wait for long as, just as Nene was about to voice her concerns, Izuku could see a man walking their way from what Izuku assumed to be the main training area where a few others were running through a routine.

“Don’t think I’ve seen you two before,” the man called out as he crossed the threshold to the reception area. “Welcome to Nasa-Yomi Dojo. What can I help you with?”

Seeing as he was getting straight to the point, Izuku responded in kind. “W-well, we were hoping to sign up and join if that were possible.”

The man nodded slowly. “May I ask why?” the man probed further.

“We’re training to get into UA,” Nene answered before him. “We both thought that actually learning how to fight would be a good idea on top of our strength training.”

The man’s eyebrow quirked up at the answer. “Smart. Seen a lot of people stumble and fall cause they couldn’t throw a punch or didn’t know how to take one. And if you two are shooting for UA like you said, then I can only assume that you’re taking the exam in… seven months was it?”

The two teens nodded.

“Hm,” the man let out as he began to look the pair up and down. After a few more moments, he nodded. “I’ve certainly done more than worse. The name’s Nasamori Saito, and I’m one of the owners of this place. Come on in back, I’ll give you a tour before we get you started.”

Izuku and Nene followed after the man who began pointing a few things out. The main training area, class schedules for groups of varying ages, the admittedly impressive attached gym, and various other implements within the building.

“Do you also teach swordplay and stuff like that?” Nene asked near the end.

That gave Nasamori pause. “Sorry. I don’t think I ever asked you two what you were looking for.”

“I’m looking for hand to hand training,” Izuku answered.

“I’m willing to learn that too, but I was hoping to focus more on knives or batons,” the silverette next to him followed.

The verdette turned to her in slight surprise at her admission.

Understanding the unspoken question, she shrugged. “What? I like it.”

Nasamori let out an audible chuckle. “Fair enough. That’s not part of the normal curriculum though. Most of the self defense stuff is less about using a knife and more about getting it out of your assailant’s hands, but…. Ah! Kamakiri, come on over and help these two rugrats out!” the man called.

This seemed to draw the attention of a green-haired teen with visible mantis mutations. After a few seconds, the young man approached the trio.

“This here is Kamakiri Togaru, and he’s quite proficient in hand to hand and bladed combat. And he’s planning on trying for UA too. I think he’ll be able to help you out,” Nasamori introduced.

“You guys trying ta be Heroes, huh?” the mantis lad asked. Izuku and Nene nodded to their fellow teen. After a few seconds, he grinned. “Well then, guess I’ve got a bit more competition then.”

Nasamori let out another chuckle. “That you will. Alright Kamakiri, you already know the drill. I’ll leave them in your hands.”

Kamakiri nodded confidently in affirmation before the older man walked off.

“Alright, as much as I’d love jumping into fighting you two, gotta put you through your paces first. Come on,” the heteromorph said as he guided them back to the gym.

From there, the pair went through a few tests to get a baseline for strength and stamina. Everything was going quite smoothly until he had them start deadlifting with continuously increasing weight, after showing them how to do it properly of course.

The mantis teen let out an impressed whistle at Izuku’s current weight. “Damn, Greenie. You look like you’ve got weak noodle arms, but you’ve got some power behind them. Got a strength quirk or something?”

Izuku took a moment to set the barbell and weights down before answering. “N-no, not specifically. My quirk essentially makes me a video game character. So while I might not gain muscles, I can still get stronger.”

Kamakiri mulled the information in his head for a moment before he spoke again. “Ah, I get it. You’ve got a strength stat or something right? Nice,” he finished at Izuku’s confirmation.

Nene let out a short snort, having stopped a while ago due to her not having her bonus stats at the moment. “That’s just the basics of it. Trust me, you don’t want to hear the full explanation.”

“I kinda do,” Kamakiri replied, obviously intrigued.

Izuku, rather excitedly, prepared to do just that- only to be silenced by Nene before he could even utter a word.

“No, seriously, you don’t. Izuku-kun here loves to talk about quirks. So much so that he could talk about all the theories he’s made for his own for hours,” she countered with a deadpan look on her face.

Izuku, now no longer being physically silenced, looked away in embarrassment. He didn’t deny it though, something Kamakiri noticed.

“...right,” the limette replied after a moment, fully believing that that was a real occurrence. “Let’s get to the fighting then. Just a few rounds though. Can’t have you scurrying off just yet.”

The pair glanced at each other before ultimately shrugging,

“Ow,” Nene let out as she sat down in a seat in the reception area. It had been a few hours since they finished up at the gym, and in that time, she had learned that Kamakiri’s definition of ‘a few rounds’ was just about over a dozen. Each. Suffice to say, they were both exhausted.

When Izuku approached her with a cold drink from the vending machine nearby, she thanked him from the bottom of her heart as she greedily drank it down.

“Alright you two, give me your phone numbers,” a now-familiar voice cut in.

Nene’s brow twitched in annoyance when her gaze was met by Kamakiri. ‘Geez. How much energy does this guy have?’ “And why exactly do you need our numbers?” she asked aloud.

The teen shrugged. “Sensei put me in charge of you two, so I figured you guys would want to know when I’m in. I’m not here all the time obviously.”

“‘Obviously’ he says,” Nene muttered to herself.

Izuku on the other hand nodded at the prospect. “I don’t mind. Plus, I’ve been meaning to ask about your quirk,” he said as he began reaching for his phone.

A short exchange later, reluctantly done in Nene’s case, the two gathered their stuff to make their way out.

“Ugh. I feel like I’ll sleep for a week,” the silverette groaned.

“Does that mean that you don’t want to do a few Dungeons later?” Izuku asked with a tired smile.

“No,” Nene bluntly stated.

Izuku chuckled at her answer as they made their way out of the building.

As the door closed, a green-skinned young man raised an eyebrow in curiosity as a few questions began circulating within his mind.

Chapter Text

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask, the fuck do you two do in your free time?” Kamakiri bluntly asked the verdette and silverette pair.

Izuku basically screeched to a stop and looked at the mantis man owlishly. They’d been going to the dojo for about a week now, and things were going well. Nene was definitely showing some improvement without her bonus stats, and Izuku was getting some much needed CQC practice in.

So with everything going so well until their most recent break, neither teen had anticipated the blunt question.

Green eyes met silver as they had a silent conversation. After a few moments, Nene simply shrugged.

Izuku let out a sigh. “It’ll be easier to show you before explaining. Do you think we could stop here for today?”

Kamakiri cocked an eyebrow. “How long’s this gonna take?”

Izuku opened his mouth to give a rough estimate, but Nene beat him to the punch. “Yes.”

The mantis boy looked at her strangely. “The hell’s that mean?”

“You asked how long this will take. The answer is ‘yes’,” she replied while shooting a deadpan expression at Izuku. The verdette rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment.

Kamakiri sighed. “Fuckin’-”

“-AWESOME! You are my new best friend!” the young man yelled at Izuku as he cleaved another goblin in two.

Izuku and Nene stood back and looked at the scene with shock plastered on their faces.

Nene leaned over to her fellow party member without taking her eyes off of the scene whatsoever. “I… have no words for this.” The verdette nodded in agreement.

Minutes later when the slaughter was finally finished and the trio left the lower leveled Dungeon, Kamakiri whirled around to face Izuku with a feral grin on his face. “So, where’s the next one?!”

“Okay, slow down man. What are you talking about?” Nene interrupted him.

“Those Dungeon-things. We’re gonna do some more, right?” he explained, a wide grin still plastered on his face.

The silverette glanced back at Izuku who decided to start taking back some control of the situation. “We can go through a few more Dungeons, but are you sure you want to keep going?”

“Why the hell not?” he asked as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I haven’t been able to go all out in a long time. Most of the time I’ve gotta take it easy on whoever I’m sparring or brawling with to make sure they don’t get too beat up or bloody. But now I can fight and kill a bunch of cool monsters without worrying about the consequence! Of course I wanna keep going! This is the most amped up I’ve been in forever!”

Izuku blinked. “Y-yeah, I can see that, but you’ve gotta pace yourself too. Constantly going into Dungeons wears you down after a while. I’ve almost passed out a few times because I thought I could handle just one more in before going home,” the verdette explained.

His words seem to have struck something in the mantis boy as he calmed down shortly afterwards. He sheepishly looked away at the more experienced adventurers.

“Sorry about that. Nasamora-sensei’s warned me about going overboard. Looks like I almost did it again,” he sighed before taking a few calming breaths. He then turned to face Izuku and Nene once again. “I’ll tone it down from now on, but I was serious about joining you guys. If you’re doing this sort of shit on the regular, then I want in.”

“Well you technically already are…” Nene trailed off.

She spoke the truth. Kamkiri was already added to Izuku’s Friends List so he could actually go into the Dungeons, but that was only to show and explain a few things to him. Izuku himself never really thought of recruiting the battle hungry young man though. But now that he was thinking about it…

“I… don’t have anything against it. Honestly, with how you handled yourself, I don’t really see a reason to deny you. You?” he explained before asking Nene of her opinion on the matter.

The floaty-haired girl signed. “So long as you do keep it toned down, I don’t have a problem with it.”

A feral grin began to grow once more on the mantis man’s face. “Sweet.”

“Do you have any questions though? About my quirk and everything I mean,” Izuku probed.

He shook his head. “Not really. You’re basically a video game character that can go into Dungeons to fight monsters and level up. You can also tame and summon monsters too to help you. And you can also share some of your stuff with other people to give them a HUD and bonus stat points to boost them. Pretty straightforward to me.”

“A bit of an oversimplification, but yeah, that’s pretty much it,” Izuku agreed.

Nene hung her head and groaned. “Seriously? It took me days to make sense of everything, and you come along and just accept it like it’s no big deal?” she grumbled loud enough for the boys to hear her.

Kamakiri shrugged. “Eh. I like to consider myself an avid gamer, so I guess I’m just used to it.”

Nene looked up at him and narrowed her eyes in incredulity. “Okay, I guess that makes sense,” she reluctantly admitted.

It had been a few days since Kamakiri, or Togaru as he insisted, officially joined their party, and things hadn’t really changed. Izuku and Nene’s routine was slightly different as they had an extra person with them to do things alongside. Mainly because the pair had to wait on him a few times since he lived a bit a ways away.

He was invaluable in combat however. The blades he could grow were incredibly sharp and durable, allowing him to confidently take on several powerful monsters on his own. And like promised, he did well at reigning himself in on most occasions. On others though, he sometimes got in a battle frenzy that his party members had to make sure he calmed down from before he took things too far.

And since he was fighting alongside them, he was able to give Izuku and Nene pointers on how to fight better than when they just did it in the dojo. That didn’t mean they stopped going. The pair still needed more training and practice than to simply fight more monsters. The skills they learned were significant in the case where Izuku managed to tame another monster.

Class: Rock Golem- Rank D

LVL: 1

Stats (Modifiers):
STR: 14
VIT: 23
AGI: 10
INT: 9
DEX: 9
LUK: 7

Skills:
Iron Body- Level 3

Increases VIT by 10% upon activation with a 1% increase per level (Current: 12%). Costs 6 MP per second.

Aspect:
Earth- Level 2

Rock Golem’s taming allowed Izuku to confirm a few theories such as any new Summons he gains returning to level one when joining him no matter what they were beforehand. He wasn’t sure if that was true in all cases, but such a thing had been consistent so there was no reason to think otherwise.

Anyways, now the trio were hanging out at Dagobah Beach. All three were helping with the cleanup now, something Yagi wholeheartedly supported. The man’s enthusiasm flustered Izuku the first few times.

“Hey, Greenie, I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Togaru stated as he threw away a few more pieces of trash he had cut down.

The verdette threw his own trash into the dumpster before turning to his newest friend. “What’s up?”

“You’ve got a video game quirk with all the bells and whistles right? Do you got a shop menu or something?” the mohawked young man asked.

Izuku blinked. “Oh, right. Forgot about that.”

“Dude,” Togaru deadpanned.

The verdette put his hands up in surrender. “Well, ‘forgot’ is a strong word. I just haven’t been able to use it.”

“Can’t use what?” Nene interrupted as she threw a few pieces of scrap into a nearby pile.

“I have a shop menu too, but I can’t use it,” Izuku reiterated. He continued when his party members probed further. “Well, most of the items listed use a currency that I don’t have. And yes, I’ve tried yen. No, it obviously didn’t work. There also isn’t even an option for me to sell stuff either. And even if I could, there’s not much there in the first place to even buy.”

“What about trading?” the silverette asked.

Izuku nodded as he continued. “I’ve got the option, sure, but all I’d get in return are chances to get new Summons. That’s not a bad thing obviously, but the materials I need to actually get those chances are of a much higher quality than what I’ve got now. The lowest ranked item I can trade in is Rank A, but the highest I’ve ever gotten from monsters and completing Dungeons is rank C stuff.”

Togaru decided to interject. “Wait, you get items from just completing Dungeons too? What’ve you been getting? And how much?”

“Uhhhh…” Izuku trailed off as he scanned through his inventory. “In as few words as possible: a lot. Although that’s only because we’ve done so many. Mostly D rank stuff, but I’ve been getting rank C items more consistently lately though, but that’s probably because of us taking on higher leveled dungeons.”

Nene took in a deep breath. “Okay. So you can’t buy, can’t sell, can’t trade for what you can access because you don’t have the right stuff, and none of us have any idea on how to change any of that. Anything else?”

Izuku blinked as he scanned his inventory once more. “Oh! I have these voucher-like things that I can use to exchange for any item I want. They’re limited to the same rank or below what the voucher is labeled as. Like if I had a rank C one, I could get a rank C or D item if I really wanted. Can’t use them though because the items I can trade them in for are dependent on what’s available in the shop.”

His last statement curbed his party members’ rising enthusiasm.

Togaru let out a low whistle. “Damn. Sounds like hell.”

“It’s better than what I’ve had over the past decade. I couldn’t even go into Dungeons in the first place,” the verdette stated, the mantis man reluctantly agreeing after a moment of thought.

That’s when another voice entered to bring their conversation to a definitive end. “An interesting conversation, but you’ve all taken a long enough break. Hop to it!” Mr. Yagi ordered.

With affirmations from the teens and other signs or sounds of agreement from the Summons, the group got back to work.

As Izuku worked to check and safely remove any garbage in front of him, he heard a faint crash from the other side of the pile he was working on. This in of itself wasn’t an odd occurrence, but when his ears barely caught the sounds of faint whimpering, he immediately stopped what he was doing.

He quickly but carefully made his way over to where he suspected the sound to have occurred from. When he did, he saw a girl in a dirtied middle school uniform doing what seemed to be nursing an injured hand, most likely caused by the crash he heard.

Izuku took a few soft steps forward before clearing his throat. “Sorry, but are you alright?” he asked.

The blonde girl turned around and met his green orbs with her own yellow eyes. Unlike the typical round pupils however, hers were slitted and very narrow at that. Something akin to fear and recognition passed through them before she threw herself back into the door of an old refrigerator.

“Whoa! Hey, I’m not going to hurt you,” he calmly stated with his hands away from his body and palms facing her.

The blonde furiously shook her head. “N-no. Get away! I-I can’t- I don’t want to hurt you!”

“Well that’s good. I don’t want to hurt you either,” he reiterated.

“No, no! R-run, p-please! I-I don’t want to…” she trailed off, her panicked breathing quickening in pace.

Izuku scanned the girl over again to see that her slitted pupils were even narrower. Some of her teeth were longer and sharper than the rest too. And her clothes weren’t just dirty, they were absolutely filthy, various stains that looked to be from different sources dotted and trailed only the fabrics.

“B-blood. Need…”

The verdette barely caught her words. His eyes widened as his brain began to paint an unpleasant picture of her past and circumstances. He was so distracted that he barely reacted in time to block the slash she sent his way.

Thanks to recent events, Izuku was able to dodge the slash before reaching onto and grabbing her arm. He then instantly twisted her wrist to force the blonde’s grip on the weapon to weaken. While she was distracted due to the fact that her primary weapon was now out of her hands, Izuku lunged to grab her other wrist before she could do anything else.

Now the two stood face to face, Izuku’s high STR stat allowing him to keep a tight grip on the girl as she attempted to thrash about. It was like looking at a wild animal. A starving wild animal…

He was probably making a lot of assumptions, but Izuku felt as if he needed to help the girl in front of him. So in a moment of bravery, or stupidity depending on who you asked, the next time her mouth flailed open in an attempt to snap at him, he let go of her wrist and shoved his forearm into her mouth.

Izuku felt a set of small pricks and a dull throb of pain coming when the girl bit down on him, but any feeling of discomfort quickly went away. That’s when the verdette noticed the sound of her gulping down his blood. He sighed in relief as he shifted their positions to be more comfortable, sitting down on a nearby piece of scrap in the process.

As if on instinct, he brought a hand up to the girl’s head and began patting her matted hair in a soothing fashion. A minute of that passed before the girl started purring of all things. Izuku pushed that thought aside for the moment.

He heard yelling coming from where he knew the others were. Before he could really do anything to draw attention and explain the situation however, Shadow Enforcer dashed out from around the corner, sword drawn at the girl currently feeding off of Izuku. The verdette, in a panic at what could happen, threw his unoccupied arm up and just barely managed to silently convey that he wasn’t in danger.

They were interrupted when everyone else that was on the beach came rushing over. Once again, Izuku managed to properly project that he was fine and keep everyone from being too loud.

Another minute passed before the blonde stopped drinking. She lifted herself up from his arm and looked at him with bleary, tired eyes. She began swaying, the lids of her eyes almost forcing themselves closed.

“‘M sorry…” she managed to get out before fainting. Izuku caught her before she could hit the ground.

“We need to get her to a hospital,” Izuku told his friends quietly.

“And you!” Nene replied. Izuku looked up at her in confusion.

Togaru sighed. “Your HP dude. We were starting to get worried with how much was being drained.”

The Summoner’s eyes widened as he looked at his health bar. About half of it was empty by that point, though it had started regenerating in the past few moments. “Oh.”

“Young Midoriya’s quirk will keep him healthy, though a blood transfusion might not be a bad idea,” Yagi interjected, taking control of the situation. “For now, the girl is a bigger priority. Let’s get her into my truck. I’ll get us to the closest hospital from there.”

Izuku nodded and stood with the girl now fully in his arms, but he paused and looked down at his passenger with growing horror. “She’s way too light.”

A few hours had passed by that point. Despite their worry, Nene and Togaru had to make their ways home. They were only able to do that when the doctors confirmed that Izuku was going to be fine. Apparently alongside his regenerating HP, so too was his blood. By the time anyone could’ve done anything, he was already most of the way healed.

Since then, his mother joined him and Yagi at the hospital to wait on the doctor’s prognosis, something that didn’t take long to be presented.

She was dehydrated, malnourished, had several untreated infections, and a few other things that were going awry within her body. The hospital staff were able to stabilize her, but it would take time for the blonde to recover.

Once they were gone, Izuku told his mother and sort-of-mentor of what he had seen and suspected to have happened to her.

The skeletal blonde let out a groan as he leaned back in his seat.

“Temporary psychosis induced by her quirk’s instincts being suppressed? That implies quite a lot,” the disguised Hero stated.

Izuku nodded grimly. “I know, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. She’s obviously been on the streets for months, and blood quirks still aren’t fully accepted by society. In the best case, she ran away. The worst…” he trailed off.

The blonde nodded. “I’ll get a friend of mine in the police to investigate. He’ll find out the truth.”

The mother and son pair nodded. They truly hoped so. For now, all they could do was wait.

“Any news?”

Izuku looked up from his notebook that he had been blankly staring at for the past few minutes to see Nene looking down at him with worry.

Izuku tilted his head in confusion before recognition flashed in his mind. He shook his head. “No. She’s stable, but… Nene, it wasn’t good. Mr. Yagi has a police friend of his investigating already.”

The silverette nodded. “Then let’s get outta here. No point sticking around.”

The Summoner blinked before realizing that the school day had ended at some point, probably when he was spacing out. He nodded his head and packed up his things before following her out of class.

Back in the classroom, a few of the students that were still there began to gossip.

“You think they’re dating?” one girl asked.

The other girl that she was talking to let out a groan. “For the last time, no. You’ve been asking the same thing for three months. Let it go.”

One of the boys decided to throw in his own opinion. “Well I don’t know about you, but I’ve been seeing them running around a lot. Saw Deku grinning like an idiot a few times too.”

“Maybe, but I saw ‘em running around with some new guy over the past few days. Think they’re up to something?” another boy asked.

The second girl scoffed. “Oh please. What could they possibly be up to?”

“Toga Himiko,” Tsukauchi Naomasa muttered to himself.

It didn’t take long to cross reference the appearance, quirk, and other information he had to find out who the Jane Doe Toshi asked him about was. Although the fact that she was from a different area did slow him down a bit. And now Naomasa was concerned.

Toga Himiko went missing just before her middle school graduation a few months ago after allegedly assaulting a classmate of hers. And the parents of the kid who was attacked were apparently not pressing charges, at their son’s insistence according to the notes. What was most concerning were the notes about her own parents.

“She’s finally shown her true colors.” “We tried to educate her.” “Discipline never changed that demon.”

“The fuck?” the man whispered to himself.

Something was definitely wrong.

Chapter Text

Dark…

Cold…

…

...HUNGER…

Himiko jolted awake. Her breathing short and panicked as her a ringing in her ears dulled her hearing. She glanced around, hoping desperately that she was still safe, and froze.

This wasn’t where she was staying. It wasn’t any of the hiding spots she found. The rhythmic yet accelerating beeping drew her attention next. What she saw looked like one of those heart monitors she rarely saw on TV. Was she in a hospital?

The blonde tried to get up, but her body failed her. It- She felt so… weak. Tired.

She groaned. “Ugh, what happened? I found that beach and thought it was a good time to take a nap, and then… why can’t I remember?”

After a few more moments spent agonizing over her missing memories, she fell back into her bed. She was in a hospital, that much was for sure. Maybe some kind person fished her out of the junk and brought her here. More than a monster like her deserved. At least it was quiet.

…too quiet she realized. Her mind was… clear. The urges that had become so ingrained in her life were completely gone. She felt… full…

That realization triggered something in her brain, her missing memories slotting into the blank space before she awoke. The green-haired boy- she- she…

Himiko screamed.

Minutes Earlier

“When I told you to take a break, I honestly don’t know what I was expecting,” Togaru grumbled to himself.

The silver-haired girl next to him shrugged. “I don’t know either. Izuku’s been distracted ever since he found her. Of course he’s gonna visit if he’s got nothing to distract himself,” Nene told the mantis man whilst gesturing at the verdette they were following.

Izuku himself didn’t really hear them, too focused on traversing the hallways of the hospital to the blonde’s room. The verdette once again reminded himself to ask for her name.

Anyways, the past few days have been… exhausting for him. He just couldn’t get the image of her out of his head. Her thin, frail body too light in his arms… the image has kept him up for the last several nights. And no matter how much cleaning or fighting in Dungeons he did, the girl never left his mind.

His thoughts ground to a screeching halt when a scream rang out from a nearby room. The trio paused before Izuku, in a panic, instinctively rushed towards where he thought it came from. Nene and Togaru glanced between one another before following.

It was only as he got closer did the Summoner realize that the scream came from the room of the girl he found.

Heedless of who or what could lay on the other side, Izuku threw open the door to find the girl in question huddled in a ball on her bed. Izuku didn’t think, he just moved.

“Are you alright?” he asked as he approached the bed.

The blonde peeked out with her wide, yellow eyes and pushed herself away. Unfortunately, in her panicked state, she fell off the bed and landed on the floor with a dull thud. Several of the machines she was hooked up to were either disconnected or tugged along with her. The verdette immediately moved to the other side of the bed to see if the girl was okay.

The blonde groaned in pain, but another concerned question from Izuku brought her back to the present as she pushed herself further away.

“No. NO! Please, I don’t want to hurt you again!” she yelled with fear clear on her face.

The statement made Izuku confused as he got onto his knees a few feet away from her to appear less threatening. “What reason would you have to hurt me?” he asked genuinely.

“Because I’m a monster!”

“But… you’re not,” the verdette replied, sincerely yet slightly confused, not comprehending any other possible answer.

This gave the blonde pause, the genuine statement barging into her mind. Her scared eyes looked up at him and plainly saw his concerned gaze.

“B-but I hurt you… on the beach,” she quietly said after a moment.

Izuku blinked. “Oh, that? Honestly, it didn’t really hurt. Plus, I was almost fully healed by the time we got to the hospital, so it wasn’t like it was a big deal,” he replied with a shrug.

The blonde continued staring at him. “But I-I still took your blood,” she continued to argue.

“I offered. You looked so… I don’t know how to describe it, but you looked hungry. And since you kept muttering about blood, I took a chance. I’m just glad it paid off.”

The response floored the vampire. He… offered? “W-why?”

Immediately understanding the intent behind her question, Izuku responded to it like he always has. “You look like you needed help.”

Silence descended upon the room, the blonde’s eyes growing wider at his answers. As the seconds passed, tears began to form in the younger girl’s eyes. Then they began to fall.

Izuku gently scooted forward and once he was within reach, he slowly began wrapping his arms around her. The girl responded by pushing herself further in, accepting the comforting hug completely.

In the doorway, the pair of teens breathed a sigh of relief seeing the current situation resolved. The two smiled at the scene, but one decided to softly voice his thoughts.

“You’re a pretty cool guy, Greenie,” Togaru quietly said, mostly to himself. Standing next to him, Nene readily agreed with his observation.

[Kamakiri Togaru: Bond Level Up]

[Kamakiri Togaru: Bond Level- 1]

Maybe a few seconds after that, a nurse had frantically entered the room only to find their charge crying in the comforting embrace of her visitor. From there he and a few other nurses tried to coax the girl away from him, but she stubbornly stayed put.

Eventually the nurses and Izuku were able to get her back into the bed and hooked back up, but Himiko actively refused to let go of the verdette’s hand. The staff then checked her over once more just in case and found a new bruise forming from her fall. They gave her a little medicine for it before shuffling out to file a report, leaving the teens with the younger girl.

Later they were joined by Inko and Mr. Yagi who had a guest with him.

“My name is Tsukauchi Naomasa, and I’m a police detective,” he stated upfront as his introduction.

Himiko pushed herself further into her pillow, but Izuku tightening his grip on her hand comforted her.

“H-hi,” the girl stuttered out.

He smiled softly. “Hello Himiko-chan- may I call you that?” the man asked since he did not want to call her by her family name. She nodded.

“I’m assuming you have news Naomasa?” the thin blonde man asked his friend.

The detective nodded. “Since you’re all involved now, I may as well cut to the chase now. I found Himiko-chan’s file and followed up on the report of when she went missing to do some investigating.”

The girl in question lowered her head in fear and shame.

“And after said investigation was complete, Mr. and Mrs. Toga have been arrested and are awaiting trial for child abuse and neglect on top of a number of other charges.”

Himiko became as still as a statue for a few seconds before rapidly bringing her gaze to meet the detective’s. “W-what?! B-but what about-” she cut herself off when the black-haired man held up his hand.

“I’m acutely aware of the incident that led to you running away, but that was a result of their actions, not yours,” he firmly yet politely explained. “Suppressing the instincts and needs of someone’s quirk is an extremely outdated practice that was made illegal almost a century ago. All the quirk counselors you visited told your parents that you needed to drink blood to function properly, and all of them also testified that the moment any of them told your parents this, they pulled you from their practices.

“Then there are your classmates and their parents. They all knew that something was wrong and that it was quirk related, but without solid proof, none of them could do anything. Once it got out that you needed to drink blood as part of your quirk and that Mr. and Mrs. Toga prevented you from doing so, they all filed police reports against them.

“For some reason that didn’t go far. It wasn’t until I began investigating and verifying a few things that the ball started rolling. Helps to have a few big names behind me to help grease the wheels too. A petition has already been signed to strip the Toga’s of their parental rights. All that’s really left is to find someone willing to foster her.”

With his long explanation finished, everyone else began processing this information. Himiko herself needed a lot of time to do so. When Izuku’s mind finally caught up to the detective’s last sentence, he opened his mouth to speak.

“We’ll take her in,” Midoriya Inko said firmly but not unkindly.

Izuku blinked and looked to his mother in confusion.

"That was fast," Yagi noted to no one in particular.

The woman sighed in exasperation as she looked to her son. “Honey, you haven’t let go of her hand since I got here. I knew you’d ask anyways, and I’m honestly not opposed to the idea myself either.”

Himiko kept rapidly switching her gaze between the two verdettes. After a few more seconds of that, she then turned her gaze down to her lap. Overwhelmed by the situation, she began to cry again in a mixture of relief and happiness.

Izuku hugged her again too. It felt nice.

The next week was a bit of a whirlwind for Himiko. A few investigators came in to question her more about her life before she ran away during her recovery. The growing horror on everyone’s faces, especially the Midoriyas’, when she began going into further detail told her that her life was far from the normal her dear old parents tried to force her into. Himiko was still coming to terms with that nugget of information.

Speaking of the Midoriyas, they visited her a lot. Sometimes it was both, others just one. They were often accompanied too, but the blonde didn’t mind all that much, the people were all fun too.

And thankfully a week was all that she needed in the hospital. Her body was in good enough shape. The injuries she had were quickly healed so all that had to be dealt with was just being a bit underfed and dehydrated, something that everyone made sure she wasn’t anymore, especially with blood. It felt a bit weird but right to have blood as a part of her diet. Weird because it’s new, but right in that she’s been thinking a lot clearer recently.

Not to mention that she was happy to be getting out. As much good as the hospital has done her, she’s not much of a fan of just sitting around most of the day and waiting for someone to either visit her or sleep.

At the moment Miss Midoriya was down in the lobby completing the paperwork for her release since the woman was now her legal guardian. Izuku was busy as it was a school day, so all the blonde could really do was try out and model some of the clothes she was giving over the past few days. Most of it was a bit big on her current frame, but she was assured that that problem would fix itself with a proper diet and eating schedule.

That’s when the door to her room opened.

“Toga-chan.”

Himiko jumped at the voice. Not the suddenness, but the tone and sound. With wide eyes, she turned to spot someone she never thought she’d see again.

“S-S-S-Saito?!” she stuttered in surprise.

The boy smiled at her warmly. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

That got the blonde to stiffen in shock and surprise. “W-what? But I…” she attempted to argue.

“You attacked me? I don’t really blame you,” he said as he waved her off.

Himiko was suddenly hit by a sense of deja vu. She knew what she went through was wrong and that attacking and hurting others during her brief fits of psychosis weren’t entirely her fault, but even so, being forgiven so readily and easy wasn’t something she wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to.

“Why?” she stressed after a moment of silence.

Saito chuckled, though it wasn’t humorous, just awkward. “Well, I knew you wouldn’t just do that for no reason. I’m good at reading people, so I could tell from the moment we met that you weren’t dangerous like that,” he explained before his expression turned more sorrowful. “Plus, that look in your eyes… I could almost feel the pain and sorrow you were going through when I saw them. Then the news about your parents started getting out, and well…”

“Oh.” the vampire responded intelligently. Silence prevailed for a few more seconds before she spoke up again. “H-how have you been since then?”

He shrugged. “Good. Fine. Got some blood transfusions shortly after you left, so I wasn’t in any big danger. Also some therapy. Don’t get me wrong, I meant it when I said that I don’t blame you, but something like that’s still traumatic,” he said as fiddled with his fingers.

Himiko nodded in understanding. That wasn’t all that hard to believe honestly.

“How about you?” he probed.

“Well… the mother of the boy who found me is taking me in. Said she knew he was going to ask her to anyways,” she said with a chuckle. “They and a few others have been visiting me since then. It’s… it’s been nice.”

“I bet,” Saito replied with a soft but genuine smile. He then let out a sigh. “Guess I should get outta your hair then. It may not be for a while, but see you around?”

Himiko stared at the boy blankly for a few moments before smiling wide enough to show her teeth. “Sure.”

Izuku grunted as he threw another piece of trash into the dumpster. He then noticed the counter for the quest went up again.

[Percent of Dagobah cleaned- 72%/100%]

“Wow. We’ve been making a lot of progress recently,” he remarked as he looked at the beach proper.

“Helps that I’ve gone up a bond level now!” Togaru cheered as he slashed a whole car in half with one slash of his blade.

Nene laughed. “Yeah, put you’re just at plus three. I’m at plus five now!” The mantis man shook his fist at her angrily before the two chuckled. “Not to mention the gear Izuku-kun gave us.”

“You guys are strong and stylish now,” Himiko cheered.

Izuku looked over to the blonde he quickly began thinking of as a little sister, something that she apparently reciprocated. Maybe they were moving a bit fast, but the now-family of three honestly didn’t care. Izuku and Inko both loved Himiko, and Himiko loved them back. That was all the trio needed. Didn’t hurt to get the adoption finalized.

He smiled at the way she smiled, carefree and happy. It had been about another week since she had been released from the hospital, and the blonde quickly caught on to Izuku’s extra curricular activities. She was informed and invited to join in by the party, but she declined.

“It sounds fun, really, but you guys are training to be heroes. Not only am I a couple of years younger, but… I don’t even really know what I want to do with my life yet.

The teens all readily agreed to give the girl time, especially since she could now live the life of a normal teenager. Well, her normal. The mother and son verdettes that took her in spent an entire afternoon explaining the difference between societal and personal normals. Himiko was much happier the next morning, so Izuku filed it away as a win.

“Yup! Just had to wait for him to remember about it,” Nene accused while glaring at Izuku.

This brought him back to the present and made him quite sheepish. He’d agree that he was a bit of an idiot.

When Togaru asked about the shop and Izuku revealed that he had a plethora of items just sitting at his disposal, the mantis man immediately demanded to know what he had. Izuku wasn’t lying when he said that he had a lot.

Since then the party went through all of the items and found that other people could equip stuff like weapons and armor too. Izuku had to do it in a menu himself, but once he did, it was just as if he or his Summons were wearing those items. With that knowledge, they went through all of the items he had and he equipped the best to them to further increase their boosts. The stat increases were small individually, but they added up over time.

Now Izuku was happy to know that everyone was as well protected as they can be at this point… except Water Slime and Rock Golem. Izuku was sad to see it, but it seems that the system won’t allow him to equip them with anything due to their irregular body types. Izuku vowed to find a solution to this.

The verdette cleared his throat. “Anyways, we’re almost strong enough to go through that Named Dungeon I found.”

“That ‘Tranquil Meadow’ place, yeah?” the mohawked teen confirmed. “Wonder what it’ll be like. Just a bit more grinding and you’ll be level twenty, your Summons will have higher levels, and we’ll have more stat points."

Nene took the opportunity to remind the boys of something else. “Yeah, but we’ll need to set aside time for studying. Finals are coming up.” The mantis man let out a groan at her words.

“Hey, after finals it’ll be summer. We’ll be able to do a lot more then,” Izuku placated, an action which seemed to work.

Himiko chose to pipe in. “Bring me a souvenir?”

The group made their assent known before packing up and heading home.

Chapter Text

“We need a break,” Nene claimed before taking another bite of her ice cream.

Togaru looked up from his popsicle with a raised eyebrow. “Isn’t that what we’re already doing?” he shot back.

The silverette pointed her spoon at him with a half-hearted glare in response. “A real break, not just between Dungeons. Like, an actual day off.”

Izuku hummed in thought. “That might be a good idea actually. We were going dungeon crawling almost every day for a while so we’d be ready for Tranquil Meadows. The only reason we ever stopped was for exams, but it can be argued that we didn’t really have any time off then.”

Nene gestured the verdette in exasperation. “See! Even Izuku-kun agrees with me.”

The Summoner blinked in confusion as he muttered, “Wait, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Okay, fine,” the mantis boy replied as he bit down to finish off his popsicle. “If you’re so hellbent on having a day off, then what are we gonna do? Arcades and I don’t really get along.”

She smirked back at him. “I’m glad you asked. With it being summer-”

“Hard to miss with all this heat,” Togaru grumbled as he fanned himself.

“-there’s no better way to spend a day off than at the beach!” she finished, ignoring the limette entirely.

“The beach?” Izuku repeated as he tilted his head. “I don’t know. Any local beaches would be pretty packed by now.”

“Except Dagobah,” Nene answered happily, taking yet another bite of her frozen treat.

“Would that even be allowed?” Togaru questioned.

“We cleaned it, so we’d know better than anyone where it’s safe to walk around without getting hurt,” she answered with a shrug.

Izuku put a hand to his chin as he said, “It’d certainly beat fighting the crowds at any other beach. Plus, it wouldn’t really be illegal either.” At his friends’ confused expressions, he explained. “The local municipality put out a notice that the cleaned portions of Dagobah are open to the public, but that there may still be hidden pieces of scrap and other hazards.”

“Bullshit,” Togaru huffed. “We picked those areas clean. Ain’t nothing left.”

“Even so, most people wouldn’t be willing to risk it when there are other, safer beaches out there that don’t still have piles of junk lying around. Better to stick with a known quantity than risk it,” Nene reasoned with a hum, which the mantis boy wordlessly conceded.

“Not to mention that the notice itself hasn’t gotten much attention either,” Izuku added. “There’s a small post on the official website and papers on the beach’s bulletin boards, but other than that…” he trailed off with a shrug.

Togaru let out a bark of laughter. “Probably because they don’t wanna admit that a bunch of teens are the ones who cleaned that shithole up!”

The verdette then glanced between his friends. “So we’re doing this, a beach day at Dagobah?” Glances were exchanged before nods and other words of agreement were exchanged.

“It’d be pretty boring if it’s just the three of us and the Summons though,” the limette pointed out. “I don’t really have any friends outside of you guys, and I doubt my parents would take a day off like that. What about you guys?”

“Same thing with my parents,” Nene said as she raised her spoon. “My little brother and sister might like it though. They’ve been pretty bored this summer actually. What about your mom and Himiko, Izuku-kun?” she said whilst turning to the boy in question.

Izuku thought for a moment before answering. “My mom might be able to come, though not the whole time we’re out there as she’s still got work too. I’m sure Himiko would love it though. She deserves it honestly with how hard she’s been working to catch up on schoolwork.”

“So her online stuff’s been going well?” Nene asked to which the Summoner nodded.

“She says it’s difficult, but I’ve checked her pace, she’s ahead of where she’s supposed to be right now. Maybe she wants to attend physically next year, but we’re waiting to have that conversation,” he replied with a smile.

From there, the conversation turned to when they’d all meet up and who would bring what. Food, bucket and shovels, that sort of stuff. If they were planning to stay at the beach all day, they had to be ready for it. And when they split up to begin their preparations, Izuku could stop himself from smiling all the way home.

With one last strike, Izuku buried the final stake into the sands of Dagobah. With his task complete, he stood to his full height and wiped his brow of the sweat that was slowly starting to build up. He then glanced around to double check his work.

See, after the impromptu beach day planning session yesterday, he felt it would be a good idea to ensure that everyone unfamiliar with the beach had an idea of where it was safe to walk. A boundary to show what had been fully cleared of scrap and debris and what hadn’t. He even posted signs on the bulletin boards around the beach to make it even more obvious.

It was better to make the precaution now before someone got hurt, especially with Nene bringing her younger siblings along.

So Izuku arrived at the beach a bit earlier than planned to make it happen. That, and to grab a few last minute supplies as well. A bit extra never hurts.

Now all he had to do was wait. He sat down on the sand, the morning sun rising above the watery horizon, and began scrolling through recent news and various blogs. There wasn’t anything too exciting or out of the ordinary, but some of the published reports described a few interesting quirks that he analyzed for a bit.

That all came to an end when he heard Himiko yelling out to him from behind. He turned around and smiled at his new sister dashed across the sand, their mother not far behind carrying a picnic basket. The blonde then began showing off her one-piece swimsuit and matching sash, gushing about how cute it was with a smile.

Next was Togaru who grinned as he lifted up a cooler filled with drinks and various frozen treats in one hand and a large umbrella in the other. He was wearing swimming trunks like Izuku, but the mantis boy wore an open jacket in contrast to the verdette’s t-shirt which only had the kanji for “bikini top” on it.

Lastly he spotted Nene not long afterwards walking behind the fence, her attention aimed at something else. Or, more likely, a pair of someones as evidenced by the two children who burst out from around the corner. The two skidded to a stop at the top of the steps and joyfully looked on with wide-eyed awe.

“Hana! Look, look! It’s the ocean!” the red-haired boy called out.

The brown-haired girl, Hana, nodded her head furiously as she gushed, “It looks so pretty!”

They then jumped down the steps as fast as they could before sprinting across the sand to the shoreline. The rambunctious pair ran past Izuku, the verdette involuntarily laughing at their excitement.

“Hana! Taka! Slow down!” Nene called out after then before letting out a laugh of her own.

As the others began setting up, the Summoner jogged over the silverette who was wearing a t-shirt like him with a cloth with seashell patterns around her waist covering her lower half.

“Do you need a hand?” he offered, gesturing to the bags of various beach toys she had with her.

She smiled back appreciatively. “Thanks. Brought along a bit more than I meant to.”

Izuku chuckled. “I was about to say,” he said jokingly which got a similar reaction from Nene.

He then took on about half the load, allowing the silverette to breathe easier. She was fully capable of carrying everything on her own, there was no doubt about that, but all the training and bonus stats in the world didn’t make so many bags and items any less cumbersome.

They talked a bit more as they approached the spot where everyone else had set up before being interrupted by Inko’s enthusiastic greeting. Off to the side, Izuku chuckled lightly, seeing how happy his mom was that he had friends like them.

Once greetings and pleasantries were finished, the silverette finally had a chance to look around. “Stakes?” she wondered aloud.

Izuku nodded. “Yeah. I thought it was a good idea to get down here early and mark everything out,” he explained.

“To make sure no one gets something stuck in their feet or trip on junk,” she finished before looking back at him again. “Thanks again, really. I’ll have to make sure I drill it into their heads before they do something crazy,” Nene said whilst gesturing to her siblings playing in the water, Himiko and Togaru recently joining in.

“You haven’t talked about them all that much. Are they really that much of a handful?” he asked with a tilt to his head.

She sighed back as she held the bridge of her nose. “You have no idea. I love them, I do, but those rascals test my patience sometimes.”

Izuku thought for a moment. He could sort of understand. Himiko had only been with them for a little over a month by that point, and a lot of that time was spent helping the girl discover what her normal was. She was very unsure at the start, trying out a variety of things to find what she liked. Most of the time that meant hobbies and preferences. Other times that meant aspects of her personality. She’s never mean or malicious, still always the kind girl he knew her to be, but Izuku can tell she likes being a gremlin the most.

That is all to explain why he says that he’ll probably be in Nene’s shoes not too far into the future.

Seeing he had nothing else to add, the silverette turned to the shoreline. “Hana! Takahiro! Can you come here for a second?!” she called out to the pair.

They approached her, begrudgingly, after a bit more coercion. She quickly explained what the stakes in the ground meant so they wouldn’t get any “ouchies”.

“After all, any ouchies means no more playing,” she explained, to which the two nodded obediently. Neither of them wanted to miss out on any playtime. “Oh, and before I forget, sunscreen first.”

That got groans and whines from the pair. Nene pressed. “Remember, too much time in the sun causes ouchies. And if either of you get ouchies…” she trailed off, the perceived threat to the playtime once more clear to the two kids who eagerly waited for the sunscreen to be applied.

Meanwhile Izuku stood off to the side smiling at the interaction. Once they were covered in lotion, they bolted back to the water, leaving them alone once more.

“You’re really good with them,” he said while accepting the silent offer of sunscreen for himself.

“Comes with practice,” Nene replied with a shrug. “I’ve told you, Mom and dad are at work most of the time. Someone has to take care of them.”

The Summoner hummed in thought, something about the remark nagged at him. “But what about next year?” he lightly gasped as realization hit him. Nene looked at him curiously, not quite understanding the question. “You know, next year? At UA? With the on-campus dorms students are required to live in?” he asked nervously.

The silverette blinked as recognition dawned on her. “Oh. I… shit. I’ve been having a neighbor watch them while I’ve been out with you and Togaru,” she said, her breathing becoming shallower by the second. “B-but that won’t work if I make it and have to move into the dorms. A-a-and I can’t just leave them alone either- I mean, they’re twins, and they just turned five, and-”

She stopped when two hands pressed onto her shoulders, the pressure pulling her back from her spiral. Nene looked up to see Izuku looking at her with concern.

“S-sorry,” she stammered out while wiping away the nervous tears that threatened to fall.

”I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you like that,” Izuku apologized in turn.

Nene shook her head and took a few more deep breaths to calm down. “No, no. You didn’t do anything wrong. If anything, you bringing it up now will give me some time to think about it. I’ve got, what, six- seven months before the exam. And even then, it’ll only be a problem if I get in,” she said, some of her anxiety still showing despite the smile.

Izuku wanted to correct her and say when she’d get in, but he dropped it for the time being. He’d rather not cause his friend any more distress than she was already in. Plus she was right, the exam was still months away. That didn’t make him feel any less guilty though.

With a shake of his head, Izuku refocused- or he tried to at least before he started blushing so hard he turned into a strawberry. The cause? Nene was currently taking off her shirt. The action soon revealed that a bikini top matching her waistcloth lay underneath, but that fact did little to calm his hammering heart.

In fact, it just drew more of his attention to her body. Her lithe body littered with the traces of developing muscles, smooth skin that shined in the morning sun, and her floating hair tied up into a casual ponytail, the free sidelocks framing her cute face perfectly even as the ends tried to defy gravity. And with so little covering her body, he began to notice the shapely curve of her hips that trailed inwards at her thin waist before expanding once again at her sizable breasts that should not be thinking about- WHAT ARE YOU DOING-

“Yes! The beach! Water! Happy water time! Let’s go!” Izuku yelled, startling the girl. He tried to hide his incandescent blush as he scrambled to the water as fast as his AGI would allow him before hurriedly diving into the shallow water.

Meanwhile, Nene slowly got over her surprise as confusion became more prevalent. After a few moments, her shock wore off, allowing the absurdity of what just happened to hit her. She started giggling, her previous worries now at the back of her mind.

What neither of the teens remembered was that Inko was sitting nearby, giggling into her hand, struggling to keep quiet and not burst out cackling at her son’s display. It would seem she had something to tease her baby about once the day was over with.

“Try this on for size!” Togaru cried out as he slammed his hand down, the inflatable beach ball now hurtling towards Izuku who reacted quickly to deflect it upwards and over to Hana who giggled happily as she pushed it away up and away from herself.

Nene, up to her ankles in the water, prepared to jump and strike the ball back over towards a waiting Himiko. Before she could however, Water Slime jumped out of the ocean behind her and sprung off her back and collided with the ball instead. The silverette yelped, startled by the Summon’s sudden entrance, before moving to catch it as it descended.

When Water Slime landed in her arms, it trilled happily as it rubbed against Nene’s cheek.

“Whoa! Hey there,” she greeted the Summon after a moment, the game of Keep It Up now forgotten.

Next to her, Hana and Takahiro gasped in wonder at the creature in their big sister’s arms.

“Onee-chan! What’s that? What’s that?!” the redhead called while hopping to get a better look.

“It looks so cute!” Hana said from her opposite side.

The silverette glanced between her younger siblings before looking up at her friends who glanced between one another and shrugged. She sighed as she lowered herself down so that the twins could get a better view.

“This here is Water Slime. He’s a… friend of mine,” she said as she looked down and noticed the Summon’s nervous jiggles. “Be gentle, alright? He’s not used to new people.”

The pair looked at her in wonder before they nodded in unison. They each lifted a hand that they then gently placed on the creature, softly stroking the blob of sentient water. This continued on for a few moments until Water Slime began leaning into their touch, another happy trill coming from the Summon.

“It’s so smooth and squishy,” Takahiro said.

Hana emphatically nodded at her brother’s observation. “Super squishy!” she repeated before looking up at her sister. “Can that be his name? Water Slime doesn’t sound like a good name.”

Nene blinked as she glanced down at the Summon who seemed happy at the suggestion. She then looked back up at the Summoner. “Well, um, Water Slime’s not mine, so I don’t know if that’s…” she trailed off.

Izuku thought for a moment before shrugging again. “I don’t mind,” he finally said. ’Not like it’ll do much harm. I haven’t been able to change any of the Summons’ names since I got them.’

Takahiro cheered. “Yay! Squishy! Squishy! Squishy!” he began chanting, arms in the air. His twin sister started chanting in time with him, followed shortly by Water Slime’s- Squishy’s own bobbing body.

They only stopped when Inko called out for lunch, to which the twins wordlessly cheered as they ran over to get their food. Togara and Himiko shook their heads amused as they followed behind. Nene gave Izuku a fond smile as he offered his hand to her. Squishy jumped from her arms to its usual spot on her shoulder before she took the offer.

The next several minutes passed by peacefully as the group ate sandwiches and cookies, all homemade by the elder Midoriya who blushed when they all complimented her cooking. Takahiro, still in the middle of eating, said something that was muffled by the food in his mouth.

“Chew and swallow first Taka. We can’t understand you when your mouth is full,” the older Ukuna sibling admonished.

The boy did just that before speaking again. “You said Squishy was Izuku-san’s right, Onee-chan?” he asked again, clearly this time.

“I didn’t say that exactly, but…” she replied while glancing at the Summoner, “yes. Squishy is Izuku-kun’s.”

The redhead then turned to Izuku with bright eyes. “Do you have any more?!” he asked excitedly. Next to him, Hana copied her twin’s energy, though her sandwich was still in her mouth.

“Oh, uh, a couple,” the verdette answered. “Neither of them are quite like Wate- Squishy though,” he corrected himself.

The young boy seemed to get even more excited. “Can we see? Can we see?!”

Izuku glanced at his own mother who raised an eyebrow. “Would it be illegal?” she rightfully asked.

He thought the question over for a second. “Umm… Technically no, it shouldn’t be. As long as we cleaned up some more trash at least,” he answered, to which the Midoriya matriarch accepted with a nod.

With permission now in hand, Izuku only said one word.

“Deploy.”

Instantly, an armored hand shot out from his shadow which was then planted onto the ground. Less than a moment later, Shadow Enforcer pushed itself up and out into full view. Off to the side, a few paces from the group, Rock Golem slowly began emerging from the ground. Its appropriately named rocky frame completely stiff as it breached the sand. Once it was fully revealed, the Summon shook its body to dislodge any sand that may still remain before letting out a deep groan in greeting.

“Oh wow!” Takahiro said as he got up, food forgotten, and ran over to the towering knight with an ear-to-ear grin. “SO COOL!”

Shadow Enforcer glanced at the child and gave a stiff nod before surveying the surrounding area.

Hana wandered over to Rock Golem, the Summon only a head taller than the girl with stars in her eyes. She silently offered her hand to it, to which it raised one of its appendages and gently set the end of it into her palm. She smiled happily at Rock Golem. The brunette then gently pulled it towards the group and gestured to it to sit down.

The rest of the beachgoers (minus Takahiro) watched as she went to the picnic basket and retrieved a sandwich she then gave to Rock Golem. The meal rested on its appendage for a moment before Inko spoke up.

“That was very kind of you sweetie, but he doesn’t have a mouth to eat it with,” the woman explained.

“Aww,” Hana whined, clearly disappointed.

Himiko, feeling slightly bad for the girl, spoke up. “He can’t now, but maybe someday. Izuku’s Summons can change and evolve, so maybe he’ll have a mouth in the future.”

The brunette looked at the youngest Midoriya, her expression brightening considerably. She then turned back to Rock Golem and said, “When that happens, I’ll get you as many sandwiches as you want to eat!”

The Summon stared at her for a few moments before stiffly nodding, not knowing how else to respond to the girl.

Izuku and Rock Golem tossed a few more pieces of garbage out to the designated pickup area, topping off a substantial pile. The verdette then clapped his hands together, dusting them off, and turned back to the beach. He and his Summon just stood there, watching the scene play out in front of him.

It was currently late afternoon. Hana was currently under the umbrella taking a nap after the excitement over the day. Her twin brother was still full of energy on the other hand. The redhead was currently riding atop Shadow Enforcer’s shoulders, eyes full of wonder now that he could see the beach from much higher up.

Meanwhile Nene sat on the shore accompanied by Squishy, basking in the sun. Her feet where the water could easily reach it while the Summon sat on her shoulder like always. Off to the side, Himiko and Togaru passed a frisbee between each other, occasionally spicing things up with a few tricks.

As for his mom, Inko had left about an hour ago by that point. She said that she had some work she still needed to get done that day, but he could tell that she was tired more than anything. Not like he blamed her. As such, Izuku readily told her that they’d all be safe without her supervision. And it was the truth. They’d gone the whole day without injury or accident. They could last just a few extra hours without her.

“So that’s what all the noise was.”

The new voice startled Izuku. He quickly turned to see a girl walking up to the concrete barrier. She looked to be at least a teenager. She had straight, purple hair cut short and wore a tank top and shorts. The most striking thing about her were her elongated earlobes which were tipped off with what looked to be headphone jacks.

Izuku pushed down the desire to start analyzing her quirk and just rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry. Were we too loud?” he asked.

The girl shook her head. “Nah. I was just walking around and heard a commotion.” The purplette then started looking around and easily noticed the piles of junk still scattered about on the sand. “ Huh. So those rumors I heard about Dagobah were true,” she muttered aloud before looking back at him. “You’re local right? You know who’s doing all this?”

“Oh, uh-” he stammered. “N-no. Not r-really, no.” Going by the look on her face, she didn’t believe him for a second. He didn’t blame her, Izuku was a terrible liar. Even so, she didn’t push her questioning any further.

“Whatever. Looks a lot better than the last time I saw it. Mom was real sad when all this junk started showing up.”

Izuku looked at her questioningly. “Well, it’s partially open to the public. There’s still a lot to be done obviously, but it should only be a few more months until everything’s been cleaned up,” he told her.

“Cool,” the girl said nonchalantly before lifting a hand and giving a small wave. “Sorry for just showing up out of nowhere. Name’s Jirou Kyouka.”

“Pleasure to meet you Jirou-san. I’m Midoriya Izuku,” he introduced in turn.

Jirou nodded appreciatively before shifting on her feet. “Anyways, sorry again for interrupting you. Might come back around here later. See ya,” she said with one last wave before walking off.

Izuku watched the girl as she walked off, only taking his eyes off her when Rock Golem next to him groaned. He turned to the Summon who was making his way back to the main group. He then glanced up at the sky, realizing it was starting to get late. The verdette followed the golem to the umbrella and first checked up on Hana before making his way to the shore.

“The sun’s about to start setting,” he told Nene whose attention was on the horizon.

She looked down in thought. “Yeah. It’d probably be best to leave before it gets dark.” She took Izuku’s hand and got up. “I’ll go wake Hana up and get her ready. Do you mind telling the others?” to which the verdette simply nodded in confirmation.

They separated after a moment more, Nene to her younger sister and Izuku to his friends and remaining Summon. Himiko was on her hands and knees, dramatically mourning her loss at frisbee.

“I was so close to beating you mantis boy!” she shouted.

Togaru smirked as he spun the disk on his finger. “Close but no cigar, Kiddo! Better luck next time!” he bragged.

Takahiro giggled from atop Shadow Enforcer, highly amused at the display.

Izuku chose that moment to interrupt. “‘Next time’ will have to wait until another day. It’s starting to get late,” he said as he held up his phone to show the time.

The limette whistled as he tossed the frisbee up and into his waiting palm. “Damn, hadn’t realized it was that time,” he swore.

Takahiro whined. “But I don’t want to leave.”

“None of us do,” Himiko placated as she got up. “But we need to anyways. Trust me, sleeping on sand is not comfortable. You’ll be much happier sleeping on a soft, cozy bed, especially after a hot, soothing bath. And that’s only if you stay awake that long,” she said with a smirk of her own.

“But I’m not-” Takahiro’s statement was interrupted by a long, deep yawn. He then tiredly rubbed one of his eyes.

“Looks like you are tired,” Izuku countered as he walked over and reached up to the boy. The redhead reluctantly agreed and let himself be picked up off of Shadow Enforcer’s shoulders. The verdette could instantly tell that the Summon was much more relaxed now that the boy was no longer up there out of its line of sight. A protector through and through.

The quintet made their way back to their things, and it was immediately obvious that Hana was awake. Not only because she was moving around, but also because of her adamant refusal to leave. Himiko’s previous tactic didn’t work as the brunette had just woken up from a nap. Any other attempts at coercion were similarly refused, even when Takahiro himself made his want to go home known.

“How about a small adventure?” Togaru suddenly offered.

That seemed to catch the girl’s attention. “Adventure?”

The mantis boy nodded. “Yup. Just a small one though. Can’t tell you all my secrets just yet.”

She gasped. “A secret adventure?!” She squealed when he nodded.

Nene sighed but nodded as well. “Okay, okay. This one little adventure, then we go home. Okay Hana-chan?”

“Okay!”

To shorten their time packing up, Izuku just offered to store most of their stuff in his inventory to sort out later. Those who knew what he meant easily agreed. The twins were amazed when he made almost everything disappear. From there, they followed the limette down the shoreline to one of the more cluttered areas of the beach.

It was then that Himiko asked the most important question.

“Hey, Togaru-kun, where are we going anyway?” the younger teen asked.

“Did a little exploring on my own,” he began to explain. “Found an old pier that’s still mostly intact. It’ll need a few repairs and updates, sure,” he said, the next part a bit louder, cutting Nene’s concern off, “but it’s still solid. I wouldn’t be surprised if whoever made it made sure it could stand up to a tsunami.”

The silverette sighed. In the months she’s known him, Togaru wasn’t one to lie about this sort of stuff. Sure, he was a bit of a battle junkie and was often crass, but she also knew that he truly cared about his friends. No way was he going to lead them to a place where they could easily get hurt.

So the group walked. The kids looked around as they either walked, or were carried in Takahiro’s case, the clear ocean on one side and piles of trash on the other.

Not too long after they finally reached the aforementioned pier. The wooden structure extended twenty to thirty meters out and, as Togaru claimed, looked quite sturdy despite the years of neglect that it had faced. Gentle waves brushed up against the thick concrete posts supporting it from below. And at the end of the pier, a small roofed area stood.

Himiko whistled, impressed. “Wow. Kinda wish we came here earlier. Wonder if we could fish from there?” she wondered aloud.

Any further discussion on the topic was cut short by the limette gesturing them to follow. His steps were sure and firm, even as he remained focused and aware, intently looking for the first sign of a faulty board.

Himiko was next, a bit more lackadaisical in her movements but no less attentive. Then it was Nene and her siblings, the eldest ensuring the twins didn’t run off and accidentally getting themselves hurt. Izuku brought up the rear, recalling Shadow Enforcer and Rock Golem as he didn’t know if their weight would cause problems. The pier creaked and groaned as each of them crossed but nothing more which was a comfort.

Soon they reached the end. The six (plus Squishy) looked out to the ocean as a calming breeze blew by, the setting sun to their backs.

Nene inhaled deeply through her nose, basking in the silent tranquility, relatively removed from the concerns and noise of the city.

“We should come back some day, especially after the rest of the trash is cleaned up,” she said.

“Of course!” Himiko nodded happily.

Hana cheered as Takahiro exclaimed, “Yeah, today was fun!” the sun now touching the horizon behind them.

Izuku opened his mouth to voice his assent, but-

[Notice: Hidden Conditions Met]

[Summoner and Allies have discovered a Secret Dungeon.]

[Notice: Summoner and Allies will automatically enter Secret Dungeon in 10 (ten) seconds.]

“Uh, guys!” Izuku yelled, somewhat panicked.

[9]

“Already saw it!” Nene replied.

Togaru groaned. “You gotta be kidding me.”

[8]

“Izuku…” the silverette warned dangerously.

The verdette was already diving into his menu by that point. “Working on it, but I can’t seem to cancel it.”

[7]

“Hey, wait, why am I getting it too?” Himiko questioned as she jerked her head back.

Izuku’s eyes widened as his focus immediately turned to the blonde. “Wait, what?”

[6]

“Wait, I know she’s on your Friend’s List, but she’s not in the party, right?” Togaru pointed out.

“She isn’t, so she shouldn’t be getting dragged in with us,” Nene clarified.

[5]

“Um, Onee-chan?” Hana called out, pulling on her big sister’s hand. The silverette turned to her and continued. “Why are there floating numbers?”

“I see them too!” Takahiro quickly confirmed with a mixture of worry and awe.

Nene’s eyes widened. “Oh no.”

[4]

“OH COME ON!” the mantis boy yelled.

Izuku’s priorities quickly shifted, changing menus to the party screen and seeing three new names on it. He cursed under his breath as he switched to another menu to equip the new additions with armor and gear meant to increase VIT and HP.

[3]

Himiko was startled when she felt a weight settle in one of her hands. She quickly lifted it up only to jump back in shock. “Why am I holding a knife?!”

Nene’s head swiveled to the girl and the weapon then back to the verdette. “Izuku!”

[2]

“Can’t stop it, so I’m doing the next best thing!” he quickly explained.

Hearing his words, his friends didn’t waste time pulling out their own weapons. Hana and Takahiro were growing even more nervous as this happened.

[1]

“Onee-chan, I’m scared,” Hana whispered as she began tearing up.

The silverette knelt down and used her free hand to pat the brunette’s head. “It’ll be okay Hana. We’ll protect you,” she said with a soothing smile.

[0]

The last thing any of them knew, Shadow Enforcer and Rock Golem formed just before a portal opened beneath their feet. The group screamed as they fell in before the opening shut behind them.

[Now Entering Secret Dungeon: Sunset Shore]