Eight Years Ago.
Akira lay on the grass, his small chest heaving as he tried to pull oxygen back into his lungs.
He looked up, wheezing, tears forming in the corners of his eyes.
Honoka was standing where he had been a second ago. Her fist was still extended, wreathed in green flame. Her smile — that warm, maternal smile that usually accompanied pancakes — was gone.
In its place was a look of cold, hard steel.
"Get up," she said.
Akira stared at her. He couldn't process this. This was Honoka. His mom. The woman who cried when he got a paper cut.
"M-Mom?" he choked out, pushing himself up on trembling arms. "Why...?"
"Because you are wrong," she said. Her voice wasn't angry. It was terrifyingly calm.
She walked toward him. Each step was deliberate, crushing the grass beneath her boots.
"You think because you are a healer, you don't need to fight? You think the villains will see your medical armband and stop out of professional courtesy?"
She stopped right in front of him, her shadow looming over his small frame.
"Akira. Listen to me. In this world, the Healer is not the person in the back."
She crouched down, grabbing his chin with a gloved hand and forcing him to look her in the eyes. Her grip was iron.
"The Healer is the Target."
Her amber eyes burned with an intensity he had never seen before. It wasn't hatred. It was fear. A desperate, clawing fear for him.
"If a villain has a brain, who do they kill first? The guy punching them? Or the guy undoing all their damage?"
Akira's eyes widened. The logic hit him harder than the punch. In games, the healer stood in the back and spammed buttons. In reality? If you can erase the enemy's progress, you become public enemy number one.
"They kill the medic," Honoka whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "Always. They will hunt you. They will corner you. And when they realize they can't kill your friends because of you... they will tear you apart first."
She let go of his chin and stood up, towering over him like a titan.
"I will not let that happen. I will not let you be a victim."
She raised her fists. The green flames around her arms roared to life, sounding like a jet engine spinning up.
"You want to heal? Fine. But first, you must survive. You must be harder to kill than anyone else on the battlefield. So you can live, and keep those relying on you alive."
She cracked her knuckles. The sound echoed in the quiet backyard.
"Training starts now. Dodge."
Akira scrambled back, panic seizing his chest. "Wait! Mom! I'm five! I still sleep with a nightlight!"
"The villains don't care!"
She lunged.
It wasn't a playful lunge. She covered the distance in a blur of green light.
HOW THE HELL IS SHE SO FAST??? WASN'T HER QUIRK HEALING?
Akira threw himself to the side, instinct taking over where logic failed. Her fist slammed into the wooden fence behind him, shattering the plank into splinters.
Akira screamed, scrambling on all fours across the grass.
"Too slow!" Honoka shouted, turning on her heel. "If I were a villain, you'd be dead! Use your eyes! Predict the movement!"
She swept her leg low. Akira jumped, barely clearing the sweep, but the wind pressure knocked him off balance. He landed on his shoulder, rolling awkwardly.
"Again!"
"Mom, please!"
"AGAIN!"
And the peaceful life Akira had dreamed of died right there in the backyard, buried under a barrage of maternal violence.
Present Day. Gym Gamma.
"Damn, mother," Akira muttered under his breath, staring blankly at the reinforced ceiling lights. "Why couldn't you be lenient on this beautiful son of yours? Just once?"
He rubbed his stomach. Even eight years later, he could still feel the impact of that first lesson. Every reflex he had, every muscle twitch that saved him from the robots today, was carved into him by his mother.
Just then, Nezu called, "You done day dreaming?"
Akira blinked, the memory dissolving. He came back to his world.
"What?" Akira asked, sitting up.
Nezu turned to Recovery Girl, his tail swishing smugly. "I told you he was daydreaming. His pupil dilation indicated a nostalgic regression state."
Recovery Girl just rolled her eyes, tapping her foot. "Always thinking too much."
"I asked you a question, boy," she said, pointing her cane at him. "How is the over-heal? Or as you call it, 'Phoenix Drive'?"
Akira dusted off his tracksuit and stood up. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the hum of energy beneath his skin.
"It's going surprisingly well," Akira admitted. "Circulating the flames inside my body is much easier than controlling constructs outside my body. There's no resistance. My cells welcome the energy."
He flexed his hand. Blue sparks danced across his knuckles.
"The output is stable. I can maintain a 150% physical boost for about ten minutes before the mental fatigue sets in. It's basically forcing my muscles to tear and repair instantly, thousands of times a second. It hurts like hell afterward, but in the moment? I feel invincible."
He paused, a look of grudging respect crossing his face.
"But still," he added, "I can't believe Mom managed to come up with such a way to fight. Buffing physical strength by abusing a healing quirk to constantly repair micro-tears? That's lowkey insane. It's biological hacking."
Hearing this, Recovery Girl puffed out her chest, looking immensely proud.
"Of course, she is a genius," she scoffed. "Whose daughter do you think she is? I taught her everything she knows about physiology. She just applied it to violence."
Akira just sighed, raising his hands in surrender. "Yeah, yeah. You're the greatest. The Shuzenji bloodline is supreme. Hail the queens."
Recovery Girl narrowed her eyes. "You said anything?"
To which he said, "Would you look at the time!" Akira checked his non-existent watch, his eyes widening in mock panic. "I got to meet up with mom. We have to leave for the trip. If I'm late, she'll make me dodge semi-trucks for warm-up, and I am not even kidding."
He didn't wait for a dismissal. He grabbed his bag and sprinted toward the exit.
"Later, Grandma! Try not to terrorize the first years!"
"Brat!" she yelled after him, but there was a smile on her face.
As the blast doors closed behind the red-haired boy, the atmosphere in the gym shifted. The playfulness evaporated from Principal Nezu's face, replaced by the sharp, calculating intellect that made him the smartest being in Japan.
"He will become a strong man," Nezu mused, clasping his paws behind his back. "And with looks like that? A ton of ladies. He will have options."
Recovery Girl sighed, leaning heavily on her cane. "You have no idea how hard it is to keep that brat humble. He walks around like he owns the place. If he wasn't so terrified of his mother, he'd be insufferable."
Nezu kept looking at the closed door where Akira had vanished. His black bead eyes narrowed slightly.
"I think he is not done yet," Nezu said softly.
Recovery Girl turned to him, frowning. "What do you mean? His progress is exceptional. His quirk factor readings are off the charts for a thirteen-year-old."
"Not his progress, Chiyo," Nezu corrected. "His quirk."
The Rat God tapped his chin.
"I don't know how to describe it scientifically yet. The more I see it, the more the name 'Phoenix' fits. Currently, he is like a hatchling. All lively and happy. His flames carry no heat. They soothe. They mend. They can only harm someone when compressed into a solid construct."
Nezu turned to look at Chiyo.
"But a Phoenix is a creature of duality. There is always the other part. The death before the rebirth. The flame that destroys so that life can begin anew."
"You think...?" Chiyo started, her grip tightening on her cane.
"I think the day he awakens it, he will be reborn," Nezu said gravely. "And he will change forever. That boy is walking around with half a quirk. And the other half? I suspect it is not nearly as gentle as the blue one."
"So you are telling me," Chiyo said slowly, processing the hypothesis, "that his quirk is not just a fire quirk, or a healing quirk. But a transformation quirk? Like that brat Mirko has the abilities of a rabbit, Akira will have the ability of a mythical bird?"
"Yes. Just a gut feeling. But my gut is rarely wrong."
Outside the main U.A. campus gate, the afternoon sun was beginning to dip.
Akira leaned against the brick wall. He had his phone out, his thumb moving furiously across the screen.
Thwang. Squawk. Crash.
"Stupid pigs, lol," he muttered.
Just then, a sleek, black SUV pulled up to the curb. The window rolled down smoothly.
Inside, Honoka sat behind the wheel. She looked tired — she always looked a little tired these days — but her smile was bright when she saw him.
"You ready for the trip?" she asked, lowering her sunglasses. "Before your middle school starts? Which, I might add, you decided to start a year later because you were busy bunking classes to train at the gym?"
Akira pocketed his phone and pushed off the wall. He opened the passenger door and slid in, tossing his bag into the back.
"What can I say, Mother dear?" he grinned, buckling his seatbelt. "I was too busy being the ideal hero a certain someone wants me to be. You can't demand a tank and then complain when the tank skips math class to upgrade its armor."
Honoka laughed, reaching over to flick his forehead right on the feather mark.
"Get in, brat, before I leave you behind. And don't think this trip is just for fun. I booked a suspiciously steep hiking trail."
"Of course you did," Akira sighed, leaning back as the car pulled away from the curb. "Let me guess. If I fall off the mountain, I have to heal myself on the way down?"
"See? You're learning."
As the car merged into traffic, heading away from the city and toward the mountains, Akira looked out the window. He watched the U.A. barrier shrink in the distance.
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