(So initially I though something here was unrealistic until I actually did research and the results kinda shocked me).
I opened my eyes to a world that was blindingly bright, a cacophony of beeps and muffled voices swirling around me like a disorienting fog. My body felt tiny, helpless—limbs too short, fingers too stubby to grasp anything meaningful. Panic flickered at the edges of my mind, but it wasn't the panic of a new-born. No, this was the sharp, analytical dread of someone who knew this wasn't right. I wasn't supposed to be here, not like this. Not again.
Memories flooded in, unbidden and overwhelming. I remembered the cold rush of air, the screech of tyres, the shattering impact that had ended everything. But that was... before. Hotaru Inoue. That was me. Or had been me. A life snuffed out in an instant, only to flicker back to life in this fragile, squalling form.
Reincarnation? Transmigration? Whatever it was, it hit me like a freight train of existential whiplash. Excitement bubbled up despite the confusion—holy crap, I was alive again! A second chance! I had been isekai'd.
My mind raced ahead, piecing together the puzzle. The hospital room, the sterile smell, the Japanese voices murmuring about a healthy baby girl... This wasn't my old world. Or was it?
I tried to focus, to make sense of it. My past life—Hotaru's life—played out in fragments. I had been a prodigy, the kind that made headlines and turned heads.
Born in Tokyo to parents who had tried for years to conceive, I was their miracle. By age five, I was devouring books on quantum mechanics while other kids played with toys. My thoughts zipped like lightning, hyperfocusing on puzzles that baffled adults. I'd skip meals lost in equations, fidget with pens until they broke, zone out in conversations only to snap back with insights that left people speechless.
School was a breeze, then a bore. By eight, I was tackling graduate-level texts because high school curricula felt like child's play. My parents—warm, supportive, never pushing too hard—kept me grounded. They enrolled me in special programs, but they also made sure I had friends, hobbies.
"You're brilliant, Hotaru," my mum would say, "but you're also our little girl. Don't forget to live." Dad would ruffle my hair and drag me to parks, forcing me to "touch grass," as the internet memes put it.
By ten, I published my first paper on theoretical physics. It wasn't some kid's doodle; it sparked debates between universities vying to claim me. The media dubbed me a "national treasure," and suddenly I was in the spotlight. Interviews, photo ops, the works.
But genius came with baggage. Peers envied me, tried to use me—cheating off tests, befriending me for clout. Adults were worse: opportunistic mentors, greedy sponsors circling like sharks. I learned to read people fast, categorising them into "genuine" and "users" before they finished their pitch.
Still, I wasn't alone. I had real friends—the loud, chaotic ones who pulled me into arcade games and karaoke nights, late night talks that were genuine, smiles and more. They didn't care about my IQ; they cared about me.
Then there was Chihiro...
I pushed that memory away.
The excitement was building again—reincarnation meant possibilities! Superpowers? Magic? What world was this? A nurse cooed over me, wrapping me in a blanket, and I caught snippets of conversation. "Quirk registry... Manifestation age..."
Quirks? My tiny heart raced. Oh my god, this was My Hero Academia! The manga I'd binged in my old life, about a world where 80% of people had superpowers called Quirks. I was in MHA! And that meant I might have a Quirk too. What would it be? Something brainy, like telekinesis? Or elemental control? The possibilities spun in my head like a hyperactive whirlwind.
Distracted by my racing thoughts, I barely noticed the door opening until warm arms enveloped me.
My new parents beamed down at me with polished smiles.
Father had sharp features, a suit that screamed "CEO," and Mother was a vision of grace in designer clothes.
"Our little Arisu," Mother whispered, naming me on the spot.
"Arisu Shriogane, she'd do us proud won't she, my love?" Father said, stating their last name as if it was incredibly important.
Arisu Shirogane. It fit, somehow. As they fawned over me, my past life faded to the background.
This was my fresh start.
Third Person POV: four years later
The Shirogane family estate was a sprawling mansion on the outskirts of Musutafu, complete with manicured gardens, private tutors, and servants who catered to every whim. Arisu Shirogane grew up in opulence that would make most kids envious.
The family was old money, descended from industrial tycoons who had pivoted into quirk-related tech during the dawn of the Quirk era. Their wealth was vast: multiple properties across Japan, investments in hero agencies, and connections that reached into the highest echelons of society. Members of their family were even Pros.
But with that came expectations. Quirks were currency in their world—strong ones opened doors to alliances, marriages, and power.
Arisu's Quirk, however, refused to show even at the age of 4 when Quirks manifested. The parents said Arisu was a late bloomer.
"She's only three," Kiyotaka Shirogane, her father, would say, waving it off during family dinners while his wife Yumi would simply nod, her smile tight. But whispers grew. Other children in their social circle manifested early—fire bursts, minor telepathy, enhanced strength.
Arisu, meanwhile, was... different. Her ADHD was evident from toddlerhood: restless energy that had her fidgeting with toys until they broke, hyperfocusing on puzzles for hours without eating, zoning out mid-conversation only to blurt profound observations. Tutors praised her intellect—she was reading chapter books by age three, solving math problems meant for preteens—of course Arisu could do far more but she was hiding her true intellect for now—but quirks? Nothing.
Finally, at four, they took her to the Quirk specialist. The doctor's office was sterile, filled with charts of quirk manifestations and glowing scanners. Arisu sat quietly, silver eyes wide with anticipation. She'd overheard enough to know this was her big moment. The doctor, a kindly man with a quirk that let him see internal energies, ran tests: blood draws, brain scans, even a quirk-activation simulation.
"I'm sorry," he said, adjusting his glasses. "Your daughter is Quirkless."
Arisu's face fell, her eyes widened in sheer sadness. Of course she knew there was a possibility but the picture that came up confirmed it to her.
"You see this? Your daughter has an extra pinky toe joint. When Quirks first came to be, the biological evolution allowed for the conditions to remove this joint. The body deemed it unnecessary. Arisu has this trait. I am sorry, kid. But with this joint, there is no chance of her awakening a Quirk at all."
Kiyotaka's polished smile vanished, replaced by a strained, cold mask. Yumi didn't gasp; she didn't cry. Her slender hand, resting on her husband's arm, simply tightened until her knuckles went white. She wasn't looking at the doctor; she was looking at the small, devastated figure of her daughter, and in her eyes was a sudden, chilling contempt.
The ride back to the estate was silent. Arisu, usually full of restless energy, sat unnaturally still in the back seat, staring out at Musutafu's bright streets. She felt the sudden, profound weight of her diagnosis. She might be a genius, she might be a reborn soul, but here, in this world of Quirks, she was defective.
The following week after the revalation, Kiyotaka and Yumi maintained the brittle illusion of normalcy. The servants were warned to be discreet. Arisu was suddenly allowed fewer visitors, fewer playdates with children whose abilities were now blossoming into power.
The atmosphere in the mansion was no longer opulent; it was suffocating. Every tight smile and every whispered conversation was a micro-aggression Arisu, with her Hotaru-level perceptive abilities, felt keenly. The disappointment was a tangible thing, settling over the Shirogane name like a shroud. The consensus was swift and cruel: a Quirkless heir was not an asset, but a liability—one that had to be contained, or better yet, removed entirely.
One day, in the private study of their estate Kiyotaka lit a cigar, the sharp, expensive scent filling the study. He did not look at Yumi, who was meticulously polishing a decorative vase. Their voices were low, almost bored, as if discussing stock portfolios rather than their four-year-old daughter.
"The damage control is manageable for now," Kiyotaka murmured, exhaling a plume of smoke. "But the risk of a leak is too high. If the Musutafu Herald gets hold of a Quirkless Shirogane, the alliance with the Takami group is finished."
"And the marriage prospects," Yumi said flatly, placing the vase down with a sharp click. "Who wants a Quirkless bride? The entire point was to breed power into the next generation. Arisu is a wasted investment."
She used the language of the boardroom, not the nursery.
Kiyotaka nodded, moving to a large map of their distant rural holdings. He circled a densely forested area with a red pen. "We need to sell the appearance of an accident, a sudden illness, perhaps. But more cleanly, something untraceable. A disappearance. We take her somewhere isolated, stage a simple camping trip..."
Yumi's lips curved, not quite a smile, more the acknowledgement of a perfectly executed hostile takeover.
"Camping," she repeated, tasting the word. "How quaint. The poor darling wanders off in the night, chasing fireflies or some childish fancy. By the time anyone thinks to look, the wildlife will have done the rest. Tragic, really. The forests up north are... thorough."
Kiyotaka tapped ash into a crystal tray. "The Aokigahara fringe, but not too deep. Deep enough. We own the land for thirty kilometres in every direction; no patrols, no hikers this time of year. I'll have the staff prepare us a nice area. It'll be treated as a wholesome retreat with photographs and more the whole performance. Then, one night, we simply leave."
Yumi turned from the vase, her reflection fractured in its polished surface. "She's perceptive. Too perceptive. She'll know something is wrong."
"She's four," Kiyotaka said, voice flat. "Children wander. Children disappear. And even if she suspects, what can she do? Scream in a forest no one visits? Cry herself to sleep under the pines? By the time she understands betrayal, she'll be too cold to care."
The man let out a low, humourless chuckle as Yumi crossed the room, heels clicking like the ticking of a very expensive clock. She rested manicured fingers on her husband's shoulder.
"We'll give her one perfect day first. The lake, the picnic, the little pink tent she begged for last summer. Let her fall asleep believing we love her. It will make the silence afterwards cleaner."
Kiyotaka covered her hand with his. "Naturally. Sentiment is a luxury we can afford for twenty-four hours."
They finalised details with the casual efficiency of people who had ruined lives over breakfast before.
The cabin was chosen: an old hunting lodge buried in the foothills where the Shirogane Corporation logged centuries ago and then abandoned when quirk-enhanced machinery made human labour obsolete. No phone signal, no neighbouring properties, only the hush of ancient cedars and the distant, indifferent sea of trees.
Staff were told the family desired "absolute privacy—a chance to bond away from prying eyes." The chef packed wagyu bentos and imported macarons. The driver who would take them was paid triple and told to forget the route the moment he returned to Tokyo. A single photographer—trusted, discreet—was instructed to capture "candid" shots for the family album: little Arisu laughing by the water, parents smiling with perfect teeth.
Everything was theatre, and the child was the only one who didn't yet know the script.
2 weeks after finding out Arisu was Qurikless
The drive north took four hours, though to Arisu it felt both endless and far too short. She sat in the back of the black luxury SUV, knees bouncing, fingers worrying the hem of her soft pink jacket. The windows were tinted almost black, but when they rolled past small towns she caught glimpses of hero billboards—Endeavor's fiery scowl, Best Jeanist's immaculate posture, a new heroine called Lady Noire. Real heroes. Real Quirks. Her stomach twisted every time she remembered the doctor's words.
Reality wasn't fanfiction. She was Quirkless. Plain and simple.
She had tried, in the fortnight since the diagnosis, to pretend nothing had changed. She still solved the advanced maths workbooks her tutor left, still reorganised her toy blocks into perfect fractal patterns when no one was watching, still hid how much she already understood. But the house had turned cold. Servants no longer met her eyes. Her mother's hugs felt like being held at arm's length. Father had stopped ruffling her hair altogether.
Now they were taking her camping. Actual camping. The concept was so alien to the Shirogane lifestyle that Arisu had squealed when they told her, clapping hard enough to sting her palms. A whole day of just the three of them, no tutors, no schedules, no disappointed glances. She had packed her favourite bear, three picture books, and the little star-shaped flashlight.
Kiyotaka had smiled when she showed him the flashlight. A real smile, she thought. Yumi had kissed the top of her head and said, "We'll make a fire and tell stories, darling."
The SUV finally turned off the narrow forest road onto a private gravel track the family owned outright—thirty kilometres of untouched cedar and pine that had belonged to the Shiroganes since the Meiji era. No cabins, no lodges, no signal, no hikers. Just a small, perfectly circular clearing beside a silver stream where the company sometimes held discreet executive retreats. Today it held only a luxury glamping setup the staff had erected at dawn and would dismantle at dusk: one beautiful, blush-pink tent big enough for three, a cashmere-blanketed picnic rug, a portable wood-fire pit on a stone base, and fairy lights strung between four ancient trees like a private constellation.
Arisu tumbled out of the car before the driver could open the door, spinning in circles with her arms out.
"It's beautiful!" she shouted, voice echoing off the trees. For the first time in weeks she felt light.
Kiyotaka watched her with the faint, indulgent smile he used for shareholders' children. Yumi stepped out more carefully, designer boots crunching on pine needles, and lifted a professional camera. "Smile, Arisu! Wave for the memories!"
Arisu waved both arms like windmills. The shutter clicked again and again.
They spent the day performing happiness with the precision of stage actors.
They hiked the gentle trail that looped the clearing, Kiyotaka pointing out birds Arisu had never seen, just to watch her silver eyes go wide. Yumi spread the thick picnic rug and unpacked the kind of lunch that belonged in magazines: wagyu sandwiches cut into perfect triangles, strawberries the size of Arisu's fist, tiny glass bottles of imported lemonade that fizzed like stars.
Arisu ate three sandwiches and half the strawberries, juice running down her chin. She laughed when her father pretended to steal the last berry and popped it into her mouth instead. She let her mother braid tiny white flowers into her hip-length golden hair, sitting still for once because the attention felt like sunlight.
In the afternoon they built a fort out of fallen branches. Arisu dragged sticks twice her size while Kiyotaka lifted the heavy ones with theatrical grunts that made her giggle. Yumi took more photos: Arisu crowned with leaves, Arisu pretending to be a bear, Arisu asleep on the rug with her bear clutched to her chest while the sun painted gold across her cheeks.
When dusk fell they lit the fire pit. Kiyotaka roasted marshmallows on a silver skewer. Arisu had never tasted anything so perfect—charred outside, molten inside. She burned her tongue and didn't care. They told stories: silly ones about dragons who only wanted to be accountants, about princesses who solved crimes with psychology. Arisu's voice grew sleepy but she fought it, terrified the day would end.
Eventually Yumi carried her to the big pink tent, humming softly. The fairy lights overhead glowed like a private galaxy. Arisu crawled inside still wearing her jacket, clutching her bear.
"Best day ever," she whispered, eyes already closing.
Yumi smoothed hair from her forehead. "Sleep tight, sweetheart. We love you so much."
Arisu smiled, warm and safe, and let the darkness take her.
Hours later, the clearing was silent except for the soft rustle of wind in the cedars.
Kiyotaka stood at the edge of the rug, watching moonlight silver the trees. Yumi moved behind him, folding the picnic blanket with mechanical precision.
"She's out cold," she murmured. "Extra dose in the lemonade. She won't wake before noon."
"Good." He didn't turn. "Leave the tent, the toys, the fire pit cold. Footprints leading deeper in. By the time anyone realises we're gone, the story writes itself."
Yumi rested her chin on his shoulder. "She looked happy today."
"She always looks happy when she's given attention," he replied, voice flat. "Children are simple that way."
They moved like ghosts. The picnic things packed back into wicker hampers. The driver—paid triple and sworn to silence—waited a kilometre back on the access road with the engine idling. Every trace of their presence (except the child, the tent, and a few deliberate footprints) erased.
Kiyotaka paused at the tent flap. Arisu lay curled inside, fairy lights painting soft constellations across her sleeping face. One small hand had escaped the blanket, fingers half-curled as though reaching for something just out of grasp.
For one heartbeat something flickered across his expression—not regret, never regret, but the ghost of calculation. A loose end that was... no had been his own blood. She'd likely die here. He was certain of it.
Yumi's hand settled on his arm, nails pressing lightly. "Kiyotaka."
He exhaled, the moment gone. Together they walked away across the clearing, footsteps swallowed by pine needles. The SUV's doors shut with two soft thuds. Tyres crunched once, twice, then silence swallowed the forest whole.
The fairy lights flickered on for a few more hours, powered by their little battery pack, until the night grew too cold and the darkness finally won.
Arisu's POV
I woke up cold.
Not the gentle, sleepy kind of cold that comes from kicking off a blanket. This was the kind that crawled under your skin and sat on your chest like a living thing. My eyes snapped open to a ceiling of pink nylon and the faint, dying glow of fairy lights that had gone from magical to sickly in the night.
The tent was empty.
No warm weight of Mother on one side. No quiet rustle of Father turning a page of the book he pretended to read while watching me sleep. Just the bear I'd fallen asleep hugging, now lying on its side like it had tried to follow them and failed.
I sat up too fast. The sleeping bag slid down my shoulders and the cold bit harder. My breath came out in a little white cloud.
"Mama...?" My voice cracked, tiny and pathetic even to my own ears.
Nothing.
I scrambled on hands and knees to the tent flap and shoved it open. The clearing looked wrong in the grey pre-dawn. The picnic rug was gone. The fire pit was cold ash. The hampers, the lemonade bottles, the little silver skewers—gone. Only my pink tent remained, squatting in the middle of the clearing like a joke someone had forgotten to laugh at.
There were footprints. Lots of them, looping around the tent, leading away into the trees. Big ones. Adult ones. None of them coming back.
My heart started doing something strange—too fast, too loud, like it wanted to punch its way out of my ribs and run after them. I stumbled out barefoot onto the frosted grass and the cold stabbed straight through my soles.
"Daddy?" Louder this time. Desperate.
Only the trees answered, creaking in a wind I couldn't feel yet.
They left me.
The thought arrived fully formed, adult and ugly, wearing Hotaru's voice instead of Arisu's. I was four. Four-year-olds weren't supposed to have thoughts that sharp. But I did. I always had.
They left me on purpose.
I stood there in my too-big pink jacket and unicorn pajamas and felt the world tilt sideways. The clearing spun once, slowly, like a ride at the amusement park I'd never been allowed to visit because crowds were "overstimulating." My knees buckled. I sat down hard in the cold dirt.
Denial came first, the way it always does.
They're playing hide-and-seek. They went to get breakfast. They'll come back laughing and scoop me up and call me silly for worrying.
I waited.
The sky turned from grey to pale rose. Birds started shouting at each other. No footsteps. No voices. No engine sound in the distance.
They're not coming.
Anger followed, hot and sudden, roaring up my throat like bile.
How could they? After yesterday? After the marshmallows and the flower crown and the stories and the hugs and the I love yous? I ate three sandwiches. I let Mama braid my hair. I fell asleep smiling because I thought they finally loved me again.
I picked up the nearest thing—my bear—and hurled it as hard as I could. It flew three whole meters and landed with a pathetic thump. I wanted to scream. I wanted to burn the entire forest down. I wanted a Quirk that could make the trees march back to Musutafu and crush the mansion and everyone in it.
I had nothing. I was nothing. Quirkless. Defective. Disposable.
Bargaining tried to sneak in, but there was no one to bargain with. I had no gods in this life or the last. Just me and the cold and the trees and the lie of yesterday.
So depression arrived early, sliding into the space anger left behind. It was heavy. Heavier than any four-year-old body should have to carry. I curled forward until my forehead touched my knees and wrapped my arms around my shins and rocked.
I'm going to die here.
The thought was quiet, matter-of-fact. Animals would come. Or I'd get too cold. Or too hungry. Or I'd walk until my legs gave out and I'd lie down somewhere and that would be it.
I thought about Hotaru's death—how fast it had been. One second on a crosswalk, the next second gone. No time to be afraid. I wondered if dying of cold was fast or slow. I wondered if it hurt more than betrayal.
And then the memory I'd been shoving away for four whole years finally won.
I was twelve again, standing behind the science building at the academy. Spring sunlight, cherry blossoms drifting like pink snow. Chihiro's mouth on someone else's. Her hands in someone else's hair.
I confronted her. Voice shaking. Eyes already burning.
She sighed like I was an inconvenience.
"You weren't supposed to take it so seriously, Hotaru."
I remembered every word. The way her voice went light and careless, like love was a game she'd already won and was bored of playing.
"I mean, come on. You're intense. You're always intense. It was fun, but... people like you don't get normal relationships. You get obsessions."
She laughed. Actually laughed.
"I figured you'd be fine. You have your equations, your papers, your brain. You don't need people."
I had stood there while the blossoms kept falling and something inside me cracked open and emptied out. I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I just turned around and walked away and never spoke to her again.
Three weeks later I was dead.
The memory ended with the same screech of tyres, the same impact, the same cold dark.
I was crying now. Couldn't tell when it started. Big, silent tears that rolled off my chin and spotted the dirt. My whole body shook with them.
They all leave. Everyone always leaves. Because I'm too much or not enough or broken in ways that can't be fixed.
I cried until there was nothing left but hiccups and a raw throat and the taste of salt.
And then... something shifted.
The forest was still there. The cold was still there. But the weight on my chest changed. It didn't lift—it settled. Like a blanket made of lead, but a blanket all the same.
Acceptance.
I was going to die unless I moved.
Simple.
I wiped my face with the sleeve of my jacket. It came away filthy. My legs felt like jelly when I stood, but they held. I looked around the clearing one last time—searching for something I already knew wasn't there.
No note. No food. No shoes. They'd even taken my star-shaped flashlight.
I took one step toward those footprints, then stopped.
No.
Following them was what a lost little girl would do. Hotaru had died following someone who didn't want her. Arisu wasn't going to make the same mistake.
I didn't even want that name anymore.
And I could survive on my own, couldn't I? I mean, with my past lives memories it would be easy. Clear. I knew the perfect way to find water, clean water in fact, even how to find food; to scavenge for supplies from reading survival books in my past life.
I turned in a slow circle, silver eyes scanning the treeline. The clearing felt... staged. Too perfect. Like someone had chosen it because it was pretty and isolated and easy to disappear from.
I closed my eyes.
When I was three, I used to play a game with myself. I'd spin around blindfolded and try to point exactly at the cookie jar no matter where Mum moved it. I was right 100% of the time. I told myself that it might have been early signs of my Quirk. But it had always felt... different. Warmer. Like a thread tugging gently at my stomach.
I waited for the thread now.
At first there was nothing but grief and cold and the sound of my own heartbeat.
Then—there.
A pull. Not left toward the road. Not right toward the stream. Straight ahead, deeper into the trees where the shadows pooled thickest and the ground rose into a low ridge I hadn't noticed yesterday.
It wasn't hope. It was just... direction.
I opened my eyes.
"Okay," I whispered to the empty clearing. My voice still sounded small, but it didn't shake anymore. "Okay."
I went back into the tent one last time. Grabbed the bear—because even reincarnated geniuses are allowed one comfort object—and the thin foil emergency blanket folded in the corner pocket. I wrapped the blanket around my shoulders like a cape. It crinkled loudly with every step.
Then I walked into the trees.
The forest swallowed me instantly. The fairy lights disappeared behind a wall of cedar trunks. The temperature dropped another five degrees. My bare feet found every sharp pine needle, every frozen puddle. I didn't cry again. I counted steps instead. One, two, three... twenty-seven before the ground started to slope upward.
Crunch, snap, crunch, crunch.
I walk over piles of leaves and breaking a stick accidentally.
The pull got stronger. It wasn't a voice. It wasn't words. It was certainty in my gut like when I knew the answer to a proof before I'd written it down.
Up. Over the ridge. Through the boulder field where frost glittered like broken glass.
I walked for hours. Or maybe minutes. Time felt slippery. My legs burned. My lungs ached. The emergency blanket kept slipping off one shoulder and I kept dragging it back like a flag.
I didn't look back.
Eventually the trees thinned. The ridge leveled into a small plateau hidden between three massive cedars whose trunks were wider than cars. Moss covered everything in a thick green carpet that muffled my footsteps. In the centre of the plateau was a ring of stones so old they'd half-sunk into the earth.
And in the middle of the ring—nothing.
Just a patch of bare dirt and a single, perfectly round hole no wider than my arm.
I stared at it.
The pull was so strong now it felt like a hand wrapped around my spine.
I knelt. The emergency blanket pooled around me like liquid silver. My fingers were numb, but I reached into the hole anyway.
My arm went in up to the elbow. Then the shoulder.
The world dropped away.
I fell—no, slid—down a chute of smooth stone worn slick by centuries of rain. I tried to scream but the air rushed out of me. The bear tumbled from my grip. The foil blanket ripped away with a sound like tearing paper.
Then light.
Not sunlight. Something softer. Golden. Warm.
I landed on my back in a pile of ancient cushions that smelled of spice and dust and time. For a long moment I just lay there, staring up at a vaulted ceiling carved with symbols I recognised from my past.
The Jedi Order's symbol.
A simplified, stylised winged starburst—the universal emblem of peacekeepers and guardians from a fictional galaxy far, far away.
Wait, JEDI!
This wasn't canon to MHA or Star Wars, the two were made by different men. And sure Kohei Horikoshi took inspiration from Star Wars for Boku no Hero; Dogabah Beach and Musutafu.
So why was this... no... it suddenly made sense now.
A nervous, disbelieving laugh bubbled up. The cold of the forest was gone, replaced by the dry, still air of the underground.
I pushed myself up onto the plush cushions, ignoring the lingering ache in my limbs. I was in a vast cavern, but it wasn't natural. The walls were cut stone, polished and etched with deep lines that radiated the golden light. It was a single, immense, circular chamber, clearly ancient and deliberately hidden.
My eyes swept the room. It was not a grand temple of the kind seen in the Star Wars holos; it was a private, fortified sanctuary.
Around the perimeter stood half a dozen Holocrons—cubes and pyramids of crystal and metal—resting on small, clean plinths. They were silent, their edges dull, waiting. Near the centre, arranged on a low, hexagonal table, was a singular thick tome bound in aged leather. It was open, pages turning to dust, while another, surprisingly sturdy, displayed a large, elegant drawing of the Jedi symbol alongside simplified text.
Two large, industrial-looking workstations dominated the far wall. One was a compact, highly advanced Crystal Forge, clearly designed to grow perfect gems from raw material. The other was a Lightsaber Forge, an engineering setup of precise manipulators, cooling vents, and heavy casing tools.
A Lightsaber Forge. And the crystals were Synthetic Crystals.
The specific terminology hit me, sharp and clean, confirming the impossible.
I was not just in an MHA AU where Star Wars existed. I was reborn into an Alternate Universe where My Hero Academia and Star Wars Legends were fused. Synthetic Crystals only existed in the Star Wars Legends continuity. The Expanded Universe. Therefore it had to be fused with that. The world of Quirks—a society built on latent superpowers—was somehow sharing a reality with the vast, metaphysical energy field known as The Force.
The logical jump was staggering, yet my mind, trained over two lifetimes to process impossible data, handled it with ruthless efficiency.
The Shirogane parents, their Quirk obsession, their cold disposal of a Quirkless child...
A sudden, fierce surge of clarity, hotter than the golden light filtering through the chamber, obliterated the last vestiges of shame and grief.
They had deemed me defective. They had abandoned me. But my "gut feeling"—that consistent, undeniable pull—had led me not to despair, but to this. To a secret, to a history, to an alternate, hidden path.
I stared at the pristine, untouched Lightsaber Forge.
The Force.
I decided to recite what I knew on the Force:
The Force was an ubiquitous energy field created by all living things, that binds the Universe together. It was interconnected with all life on the spiritual, physical and metaphysical level, it was so connected to all life that all life would cease to exist (outside of Meetra Surik if I remembered correctly).
The Force being something made up by all living beings and as such had it's own will, being self-conscious and knew greater than any one being. The Will of The Force was explicitly good and sought the best for all living beings; every single life in the universe.
It was always good, because as life spreads The Force increases in Influence through its attachment to life and then cosmically directs life to connect everything for the sake of furthering its spread creating a feedback loop that unifies the universe together. This was what Balance in the Force meant in Legends. The kind of Balance that George Lucas envisioned.
Through opening themselves up to the Force, a user would let it guide them, let it be their guiding Light. They would follow The Will of The Force; the Light Side if it could even be called that because the Light Side didn't truly exist. It was just The Force in it's natural state.
The Dark Side was the opposite. Darksider's imposed their own wills upon the force, perverting it and bending it to their whims. Those who followed the Dark Side rejected The Will of The Force for their own selfish reasons and was akin to a powerful necrotic.
My mind inevitably refocused on the real world as I realised what I had done... I had recited lore in my head for 5 minutes standing still until the revelation actually hit me.
I was Force-sensitive. I was guided here for a reason.
The revelation hit me like a crit roll: decisive, overwhelming, and absolute. It wasn't just a fantasy.
The golden light in the chamber intensified, pulsing gently. The cushions beneath me seemed to sigh. The Holocrons—still dull and silent—felt less like inert objects and more like patiently sleeping animals.
The emptiness in my chest, the cold, hollow space Chihiro and the Shiroganes had carved out—it was gone. It hadn't been filled with hope or love but rather gotten rid of as I let go of those feelings. They were there sure, the hatred, the anger, the fear that one day it might happen again, yet I let my feelings pass by.
There was no emotion; there was peace.
The first line of the Jedi Code entered my mind as I realised the feeling in my gut wasn't just a suggestion anymore as I realised one thing.
I could be a Hero without taking Deku's future Quirk. I could—no I will be a Jedi.
Feeling into what I know knew as the Force, I closed my eyes.
I was Shizuka Moriya. That was the name I chose as I felt the Force around me. Guiding me to my decisions.
I wanted a new name so I had it. When I opened my eyes, a sense of determination ached in my body.
I will be a Jedi.