The mirror over the sink wasn't kind. It never was. The glass had scratches from years of kids scrubbing it with the wrong rags, and the light above it buzzed faintly, catching on my bruises in a way that made every mark feel deeper. My jaw was purple, my cheek swollen. But my eyes weren't what bothered me most.
It was the scar.
Even in the dim light, I swore I could see something faint in it. A redness that wasn't just blood under skin, but something that had glowed earlier when rage had taken the wheel.
I leaned closer, palms braced on the sink. "That wasn't me," I whispered.
The memory was too fresh to be ignored: the bullies blinded, stumbling; my foot connecting with ribs; my hand swinging down like I'd wanted to break more than bones. And then the sound — that hissing, alien syllable that had curled out of my throat unbidden. Parseltongue.
It hadn't been practice, hadn't been thought. It had been instinct. The kind of instinct that wasn't mine.
I touched the scar lightly. Nothing. No burn. No glow. No whisper. Just an ordinary line in the skin of an eleven-year-old boy who wasn't supposed to exist here.
But I knew better.
The movies in the old life hadn't been manuals, but they had painted enough. The scar wasn't just a scar. It carried something else. A shadow. A shard. Voldemort.
Even here, in this world of quirks and heroes, the parasite had followed.
I pulled away from the mirror, heart thudding, and sat down hard on the edge of the bed. My hands trembled in my lap.
It only came when I lost control. That much I could tell. In the rush of fury, when fists blurred and my blood boiled, something else slipped through. My mouth wasn't just shouting — it was hissing. My scar wasn't just aching — it was glowing.
And in those moments, I felt… stronger.
That was the most dangerous part.
I clenched my fists. "Not again," I muttered. "You don't get to win. Not here."
The silence of the orphanage pressed in. Someone laughed in a room down the hall. A tram rattled outside. The world kept moving, uncaring. And I sat, trying not to shiver at the thought that something inside me might be waiting for cracks.
I needed something to keep me busy. To keep me sane.
So I reached for the Tome.
The grimoire wasn't pretty — a scavenged notebook, pages thickened with dried blood inscriptions, edges curling from the ink. But it was mine. Every line in it was a piece of structure I had hammered out of chaos.
I flipped past the messy sketches of the Lumos experiments, past the first clumsy diagrams of the scroll compression model, and landed on a blank sheet.
At the top, I wrote, in thick letters:
UA PLAN — THREE YEARS
Just seeing the words calmed me. A project. A timeline. Something I could measure.
"Three years," I said aloud. My voice echoed faintly in the room. "That's all I've got."
Midoriya had talked about UA enough for me to know it wasn't just a school — it was the school. If you wanted to be a hero, if you wanted to matter, you passed that exam. Simple as that.
I didn't need to be the strongest. That was Deku's dream, All Might's path. Mine was different. I needed to be clever enough, versatile enough, useful enough to earn a place. And if the test involved smashing robots — well, then I had to find a way to make my magic matter in a fight.
I started a list.
Utility
I checked off the first with satisfaction:
Light (SM-U-001): Glow Orb, Beam, Burst. Done. Reliable.
Then: Barrier (SM-U-002).
I hesitated, tapping the pencil. The first version had been weak — a shimmer barely strong enough to push a desk back. But the model had potential. I could feel it in the structure, the way it wrapped around intent like a shell. If I pushed it harder, shaped it tighter, I could make it hold.
I remembered Bakugo's explosions, the way they cracked air and rattled windows. That was my benchmark. My barrier had to stand against that. Anything less was just asking to die.
So I wrote: Capable of withstanding quirk-level impact (Bakugo baseline). Cornerstone defense spell.
The words steadied me. This wasn't a toy. This was survival.
Next: Smoke Veil (SM-U-003). Invisibility could wait for wizards who had time to bend light like origami. For me, smoke was enough. A thick cover to block eyes, confuse sensors, buy seconds. Seconds were gold.
And then: Healing Basics (SM-U-004). Nothing fancy. Just sealing cuts, stopping bleeding, dulling pain. Enough to get back on my feet or keep someone else alive until help arrived. Energy restoration was out of my league. No miracle potions. Just stitches made of magic.
Combat / Support
Flashbang (SM-C-001): already tested, already functional. No need to chase perfection. It worked.
Repulsion Force (SM-C-002): A blast of kinetic push. A forceful "get off me." I pictured shoving Bakugo across the alley, pictured robots toppling like bowling pins. Essential.
Binding Beam (SM-C-003): No ropes, no shadows. Just a stream of energy that froze muscles, locked joints, forced stillness. I scribbled next to it: Paralysis, 3–5 seconds. Enough.
Fire Bolt (SM-C-004): Raw and simple. Fire had always been the most primal weapon. A burning shot, good against machines. Dangerous, yes. But better dangerous in my hand than in someone else's. I wrote in smaller letters: Use only on non-living targets.
Mobility
Light Body (SM-M-001): A spell to make myself faster, lighter, more agile. Not a burst, not a dangerous lunge, but a shift in balance. Like air under my feet. That was a buff worth chasing.
Levitation (Objects) (SM-M-002): Not myself — not yet. But objects? Rubble? A piece of cover pulled into place? A rock hurled like a missile? That was achievable. That was useful.
Delivery
I grinned faintly as I wrote:
Tome — Research and theory.
Scrolls — Pre-charged, one-time use. Clumsy, but lifesavers.
Then, in capital letters: CARDS — Long-term goal.
The idea lit me up every time. Scrolls were bulky, awkward to carry. Cards, though — cards could slip into a sleeve, a pocket, a band around my arm. They'd be fast, subtle, and easy to organize. A proper hero's kit.
I doodled a little playing card with fire bursting out of it.
Long-Term Projects
Two more words, heavier than the rest:
Transfiguration. I underlined it once. The most broken, most overpowered branch of magic from the old memories. Change the world by changing what it was. That would come later. Much later. But I wasn't letting it go.
Space Magic. I drew a tiny chest with a lid cracked open, stars spilling out. My dream project. A portable base. A safe haven. My own Room of Requirement in a world without Hogwarts.
Not for now. Not for tomorrow. But someday.
I leaned back, pencil still in hand, and looked at the spread of words across the pages.
Light, barriers, smoke, healing. Flashbangs, repulsion, binding beams, fire. Speed, levitation. Scrolls and cards. Transfiguration and space.
It was a roadmap. A spellbook waiting to be written. A way forward.
My eyes drifted to the scar in the mirror across the room.
"You don't get to define me," I murmured. "Not here. Not this time."
The scar didn't glow. Didn't answer.
Good.
I turned back to the Tome and added one last line at the bottom of the page:
Three years. Build it. Be ready.
And for the first time since the fight, the thought didn't make me afraid. It made me smile.