My alarm screeches like a dying cat, dragging me out of what might have been the only decent sleep I've had in weeks.
"Shut the fuck up," I groan, slapping at my phone until the noise stops. I stare at the ceiling for a solid minute, contemplating the absolute tragedy of life.
School days are all the same. Wake up, shower, get dressed, pretend I'm not living in a world where I'm fundamentally inferior to practically everyone else. Rinse and repeat.
Grandpa's already gone, probably off doing whatever retired heroes do at the crack of dawn. Training? Yelling at clouds? Who knows. The old man always leaves me a note stuck to the fridge:
"Training after school. Don't be late."
"Great," I mutter, crumpling the note.
The train ride to school is my personal hell. It's packed with people, some with visible quirks, scales, extra limbs, weird colors. Then there's me.
"Move it, Torino," someone says, shoving past me as I enter the school gates.
I don't even bother to see who it is. Just another day in paradise.
Homeroom is the usual. Our teacher, Ms. Kayama, tries to maintain some semblance of order, but it's like herding cats, if the cats could shoot lasers from their eyes or turn into liquid.
"Good morning, Shinra!" Nejire appears beside my desk, her smile bright enough to power a small city.
"Is it?" I yawn, slouching deeper into my chair. "I hadn't noticed."
She rolls her eyes. "You're such a ray of sunshine."
"I try."
The morning classes drag on, math, science, hero history. I'm actually pretty good at the academic stuff. When you don't have powers, you compensate with brains. Or at least that's what I tell myself.
Lunch is when the real social hierarchy becomes obvious. The cafeteria divides itself into clear groups: the kids with flashy quirks, the kids with support quirks, and the kids who'd rather not talk about their quirks at all.
Then there's me. Sitting alone, until,
"Mind if I join you?" Nejire asks, already setting her tray down.
"Free country," I shrug, trying to act like I don't care. Like my heart isn't doing that stupid fluttery thing it always does when she's around.
"You know," she says, leaning forward, "you could try being friendly sometimes. Just as an experiment."
I arch an eyebrow. "I could, but then I'd have to restart my streak of being consistently disappointing."
She laughs, and despite myself, I smile. It's hard not to be around her.
"How's training with your grandfather going?" she asks, stealing one of my fries.
"Oh, you know, the same, he kicks, I fly, we call it bonding."
"He's helping you even without a quirk, though. That's something."
I snort. "Yeah, he's helping me learn exactly how fragile the human body is. Very educational."
The rest of the day passes in a blur of lectures, practical exercises (which I spectacularly fail), and more lectures. By the time the final bell rings, I'm exhausted and not looking forward to Gran Torino's version of "training."
"See you tomorrow!"
"If I survive,"
Training with Grandpa is exactly what I expected, painful. The old man might be retired, but he moves like he's half his age, bouncing off walls and delivering kicks that feel like getting hit by a truck.
"Too slow!" he barks, as I eat dirt for the fifteenth time. "Your reaction time is garbage!"
"Well, excuse me for not having super speed," I snapped, spitting out blood. "Some of us have to work with what we've got."
"You think I had it easy? You think I didn't have to work twice as hard as everyone else?"
"At least you had something to work with! I'm just... normal."
"Normal is what you make of it, boy," he says, his voice softening just slightly. "Now get up and try again."
By the time I drag myself to my room, every muscle in my body is screaming. I barely manage to shower before collapsing onto my bed, not even bothering with dinner.
"Fuck this world," I mumble into my pillow, "and fuck quirks, and fuck training, and..."
I don't remember falling asleep.
But I remember the dream.
I'm standing in a field I've never seen before, though it feels strangely familiar. The grass is too green, the sky too blue, everything has that hyper-real quality that only dreams can have.
In the center of the field stands a tree. It's not particularly large or impressive, but something about it draws me forward. As I get closer, I notice a single fruit hanging from one of its lower branches.
"What the hell?" I mutter, reaching out to touch it.
The fruit is bizarre, swirling patterns covering its surface, colors that seem to shift as I look at them. But despite its unfamiliar appearance, a name pops into my head immediately:
Devil Fruit.
I know about these, read about them in manga, and seen them in anime. Powers granted at the cost of never being able to swim again. Fictional powers in a fictional world.
"This is just a dream," I tell myself, plucking the fruit from the branch. It feels heavy in my hand, surprisingly real. "Just a stupid dream."
But as I stare at it, something like hope flickers in my chest. Even in a dream, the idea of having power, any power, is intoxicating.
"Fuck it," I say, and take a bite.
The taste is so horrific that I jolt awake, gagging. It's like someone took rotten eggs, sour milk, and a handful of dirt, mixed them together, and then left them in the sun for a week.
"Jesus Christ," I choke, sitting up in bed. My mouth still tastes awful, like I'd actually eaten something disgusting.
I blink rapidly, trying to orient myself. Just my same old bedroom. No tree. No fruit. Nothing out of the ordinary.
"Just a dream," I mutter, running a hand through my hair. "A weird fucking dream."
But my mouth still tastes like absolute garbage. I smack my lips, grimacing at the lingering bitterness. Dreams aren't supposed to leave physical sensations, are they?
I shake my head and flop back onto my pillow. "Whatever. Probably just ate something bad for dinner."
That's when I feel it. A strange tingling in my fingertips, like when your foot falls asleep but... different. More alive somehow.
"What the hell?" I lift my hand in front of my face, squinting at it in the darkness.
Crack
A small spark, bright blue and unmistakable, jumps between my fingers.
"Holy shit!" I jerk upright, heart hammering in my chest.
CRACK
A larger spark leaps from my palm, then another, then another, until my entire hand is surrounded by dancing blue electricity. It's beautiful and terrifying and,
"FUCK!" I yelp as the electricity suddenly intensifies, shooting into my bedsheets.
The fabric sizzles, blackens, and then erupts in small flames.
"Shit, shit, shit!" I scramble out of bed, grabbing my water bottle from the nightstand and emptying it over the smoking sheets. The flames die with a pathetic hiss, leaving behind the acrid smell of burnt cotton and something else, something like ozone.
I stare at my hand. It looks normal now. No sparks. No electricity. But I can still feel that humming energy just beneath my skin.
"The dream," I whisper, my eyes widening. "The fruit. It was real."
I sit there for a minute, just breathing. My heart's going so fast I swear it might explode. I try to process what just happened, sparks, actual fucking sparks, coming from my hand.
"Okay, okay, let's think," I mumble, pacing around my room, careful not to step on the charred spot on my carpet. "I ate a weird fruit in a dream. Now I'm shooting lightning. That's... that's..."
I stop and stare at my reflection in the mirror. Same blue hair. Same face. But something's different.
"A Devil Fruit," I whisper. "I ate a Devil Fruit."
I've spent years reading One Piece. I know all about Devil Fruits, the powers they grant, the weakness to water, the whole deal. But that's fiction. That's not real. This is... this is...
"This is fucking insane."
I hold out my hand again, trying to focus. "Come on... do the spark thing again."
Nothing happens.
I shake my hand, clench and unclench my fist. "Come on!"
Still nothing.
"Ugh, how did those characters do it?" I mutter, thinking back to all the manga I've read. "They just... willed it to happen, right?"
I close my eyes. Try to focus on that weird energy I felt earlier. Try to imagine it flowing to my fingertips.
Crack
My eyes snap open. A tiny blue spark dances between my thumb and index finger.
"Holy shit," I breathe, grinning like an idiot. "Holy shit."
I try again, focusing harder. This time, small arcs of electricity dance across my knuckles, casting weird blue shadows on my bedroom wall.
"Is it that devil fruit?" I wonder aloud, staring at the electricity. "There is only one electricity-based devil fruit in the manga..."
I try to remember all the powers from One Piece. The Goro Goro no Mi, the Rumble-Rumble Fruit. That was the main lightning one, Enel's fruit. The power to become, control, and generate lightning.
"No way," I whisper. "No fucking way."
There's one way to test it. In the manga, logia users could let attacks pass right through them by transforming into their element.
I look around my room, eyes settling on a thumbtack on my desk. I pick it up, holding it over the back of my left hand.
"If this works..." I mutter, then take a deep breath. "Here goes nothing."
I stab down hard with the thumbtack.
Instead of pain, there's a weird tingling sensation as the metal passes straight through my hand, leaving a small hole of crackling blue electricity that quickly closes up.
"HOLY SHIT!" I yell, jumping up from my bed. My excitement is too much, I feel the energy surging through me, stronger now, less controlled.
"Whoa, whoa, " I start, but it's too late.
CRACK-BOOM!
A bolt of lightning shoots from my outstretched hand, blasting straight into my desk. My lamp explodes in a shower of glass and sparks. My textbooks catch fire. The window shatters.
"FUCK!" I scream, panicking as electricity continues to arc wildly around me, scorching the walls, ceiling, and floor. My computer monitor implodes. The lights flicker and die.
I try to calm down, to regain control, but the more I panic, the worse it gets. Blue-white lightning dances around the room, leaving burn marks on everything it touches.
"Shinra!" Grandpa's voice roars from the hallway. I hear his rapid footsteps approaching.
The door slams open, and there he stands in his pajamas, eyes wide with shock.
"What the hell is, " he starts, then freezes, staring at me.
I look down at myself. My entire body is crackling with electricity, little arcs of lightning jumping between my fingers, my arms, across my chest. In the darkness of the room, I'm glowing like a human lightning bug.
"Grandpa," I say, my voice shaking. "I... I think I have a quirk now."
He stares at me for what feels like forever, his expression unreadable. Then, slowly, a grin spreads across his face.
"Well, I'll be damned," he says softly. "Better late than never, huh?"
I nod, deciding instantly that I'm not telling anyone about the Devil Fruit. Not Grandpa, not Nejire, not anyone. As far as the world is concerned, I just developed a quirk really, really late. A lighting quirk. Nothing to do with magical fruits from another universe.
"Can you control it?" he asks, stepping carefully into the disaster zone that was once my bedroom.
"I... I think so," I say, focusing hard to rein in the wild electricity. Slowly, the arcs grow smaller, the crackling quieter, until only my hands remain glowing with soft blue light. "Yeah. Yeah, I can."
Grandpa picks his way through the debris, avoiding the small fires still burning on my desk, and stands in front of me. He looks at my glowing hands, then up at my face.
And then he does something I never expected.
He hugs me.
It's awkward and brief, Grandpa's not exactly the touchy-feely type, but it's a hug nonetheless.
"I always knew you had it in you," he says gruffly, stepping back. "Just took its sweet time coming out."
"Yeah," I say, my throat tight with emotion. "Guess it did."
He looks around at the destroyed room and chuckles. "Well, looks like we've got some training to do. Starting tomorrow."
"Tonight, actually," I correct him, glancing at my clock, or what's left of it. "It's 3 AM."
"Fair point," he concedes. "But first, we should probably put out these fires before the whole place burns down."
As we work together to extinguish the small blazes around my room, I can't stop smiling. For the first time in my life, I'm not powerless. I'm not quirkless. I'm not a disappointment.
"You know what this means, right?" Grandpa says as we finally get the last ember under control.
"What?"
His grin turns mischievous. "Training's gonna be a lot more interesting from now on."
I groan, but I'm still smiling. "Great. Can't wait."
After we've made the room somewhat habitable again, Grandpa heads back to his own bedroom, but pauses at the door.
"I'm proud of you, kid," he says quietly, not looking at me. "Always have been. But... I'm glad the world's finally gonna see what I've seen all along."
Before I can respond, he's gone, closing the door behind him.
I sit on the edge of my charred bed, looking at my hands. Small sparks still dance occasionally between my fingers.
A quirk. As far as anyone else is concerned, I have a quirk now. Not a Devil Fruit power. Just a normal, if powerful, quirk that developed late.
I lie back, staring at the scorch marks on my ceiling.
Tomorrow is going to be very interesting.