Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.
June 3, 2xxx - Izumi Pov .
"Thank you for your time, Aizawa-sensei," I said simply as I approached Aizawa, who lazily looked at us before yawning. Taylor, Ruby, and Azula were also following me when I told them what I was about to try, and they insisted on coming to see.
"Now, can I know the reason why I'm here?" Aizawa asked slowly. We were in the middle of Ground Beta, the fictional city of UA.
"I, there was something I wanted to try, something that could be dangerous, and I wanted you to be here in case of an emergency." I said honestly. That seemed to shake off all the sleep deprivation in Aizawa, and he looked at me seriously.
"Something dangerous... you say? Wouldn't it be better to bring All Might along for one of your experiments?" Aizawa asked, not even sounding annoyed or sarcastic, but rather concerned and genuinely serious. I shook my head.
"Not for this. For this, you're the best option." I said honestly as I reached into my pocket for the runestone. I took out the small stone the size of my palm and showed it to Aizawa. Aizawa's eyes widened, and his eyebrows shot up.
"A runestone?!" Aizawa asked as he walked over and studied it closely. "Where did you get a runestone?" Aizawa asked with a frown.
"I got it during my internship with Draw Sword." I said honestly. Aizawa froze and looked at me emotionlessly.
"Please tell me you didn't steal this from Draw Sword." Aizawa said dryly; I groaned loudly.
"Not you, too, sensei!" I groaned in frustration, hearing my fiancées laughing behind me.
"Admit it Izumi, your fame precedes you." Taylor said mockingly; I growled in her direction before looking back at Aizawa.
"No, I didn't steal this. During my last dungeon clear with my internship manager, Hunter Tawata, the runestone dropped after killing the dungeon boss. Hunter Tawata said I could keep it since I was the one who dealt the finishing blow to the boss." I explained in detail, and Aizawa frowned.
"How... generous of her." Aizawa said with a grimace, I nodded and smiled at him.
"What can I say? I'm sure I'll win her affection within a week." I said, almost strutting. Azula snorted loudly.
"I'm sure she gave it to you so you'd leave her alone. She was so happy to be rid of you that she didn't care about a runestone," Azula said mockingly. I could feel my eye twitch slightly.
"Anyway! She let me keep the runestone, even though she told me not to expose to the public that she was the one who let me keep the runestone." I said quickly. Aizawa looked at the runestone and nodded.
"Okay, so why now? Anyone would use the runestone as soon as they found it." Aizawa asked simply, and I shrugged.
"I didn't know whether to use it or not. I'm strong enough on my own. But since it's too precious to sell, I prefer to use it anyway. And I offered it to the three of them, and none of them accepted." I said simply, pointing at the girls.
"It's yours. It's not ours to use," Taylor said simply.
"Yes! It belongs to you! As amazing as it would be to have another quirk, this one is completely yours!" Ruby said happily.
"I'm more than happy with my fire. I still have to learn everything completely from scratch," Azula said with a shrug. I rolled my eyes.
"Not everyone would turn down a runestone." Aizawa looked at the girls respectfully and nodded. The girls blushed slightly and looked away. "Very well, Miyamura, I understand why you wanted me here then. Good thinking. Shall we begin?" Aizawa asked in my direction.
"Yes, sensei! I have no idea what will emerge from the runestone. It comes from the boss of an A-rank dungeon. It was an Arch mutant lich that could control shadows, so I'm expecting something like that." I explained to Aizawa as I walked away from the group. Aizawa nodded.
"Understood, watch out for the undead," Aizawa said seriously as he put on his glasses. And he was right. Summoning quirks were the most unpredictable; you didn't always have any kind of control over the things you summoned. If you did, it varied, from complete control to just vague commands. And if you didn't have control, they would start attacking everything nearby.
Aizawa could prevent anything bad from happening if they started summoning skeletons or some other kind of construct prized by the undead. Really, since everything from the dungeon didn't qualify as magic or the like, it was beyond me. I guess everyone was living in denial.
"I'll use the runestone." I said aloud as I gripped the runestone tightly. The stone was black and purple. I'd done my research, and all I had to do was push my aura into the stone, and I'd gain a new quirk. So, I started doing just that.
I pushed all the aura I could into the runestone. The stone eagerly began to absorb my aura before it started to crack. A moment passed, where cracks covered the entire stone before it began to decompose. I shuddered slightly as I began to feel something mutating within my aura.
Luckily, it happened so quickly, allowing me to take a deep breath. I clenched and closed my fist before trying to figure out if there was anything wrong with me, except that I could 'feel' my second Quirk. I was particularly attuned to my aura and soul, so it was easy to find; it felt similar to my Food Enrichment Quirk, yet different at the same time.
"I'm going to use my new quirk now." I said, looking at Aizawa, who nodded seriously. I could see the girls next to him looking on with serious expressions, almost completely tense, as if they were about to move in case something went completely wrong. I took a deep breath and activated my quirk.
Shadows. That was the word that came to mind when I started using it. It was almost instinctive, and I looked down. My shadow began to darken, grow larger, and began to move like a liquid and—
"Izumi!!!"
I heard the girls' panicked screams as I fell into my own shadow. My eyes widened slightly as everything went completely black. I tried to breathe and immediately closed my mouth when I felt there was absolutely no oxygen in here. Luckily, I could hold my breath for a long time.
I focused on my surroundings once more. Everything was completely black, darkness extending everywhere, except above me, right where I'd fallen. There was a huge mirror showing the sky. I walked... walked? Did I float? I don't really know how I moved in this darkness, but I moved.
I reached the mirror just in time to see it enlarge and merge with other figures; the mirror immediately showed the girls and Aizawa looking worried. I touched the mirror and was surprised to feel no resistance, I pulled my hand away from the mirror, grabbing the floor before pushing my head out.
"I'm fine!" I said immediately. I could hear everyone sighing in relief. With barely any effort, I stepped out of my shadow and onto solid ground. I cautiously looked at my shadow.
"Are you sure everything is okay, Miyamura?" Aizawa asked quickly once again. I nodded.
"What was that?!" Ruby asked immediately. I wrinkled my nose.
"My shadow? I think I can move through it," I said simply, frowning.
"Move? Like, enter a shadow and come out in a shadow on the other side of the world?" Taylor asked curiously, I shook my head.
"No, it's limited. I can move through the shadow. I can only move between shadows that are connected, like a path." Explain further.
"So… at night, you can move anywhere?" Azula asked, frowning.
"As long as it's not a lit place... I think? Although it's not instantaneous either, I have to physically move. It's... like I've entered a completely dark space and moved there." I said, confused.
"Yeah... don't go back in there." Taylor said, completely pale.
"So, why not?" I asked in confusion.
"Izumi… if you get lost in the normal world, I really don't want to find out where you'd end up if you started navigating in your shadows…" Taylor said dryly. I froze and paled.
"So my new quirk is completely useless?!" I exclaimed incredulously, and the girls grimaced.
"Let's not rush it. Maybe you can do more things with your quirk. Try to think of other things. Maybe you can place other belongings inside your shadow, and other people." Aizawa said quickly. I hummed softly and looked around, seeing a pipe on the ground a few steps away.
I grabbed it and placed it on my shadow. This time, I focused on activating my quirk, but concentrating on preventing myself from falling into the shadow as well. I could feel my shadow change slightly despite not having any visible change, but I could tell the difference. I dropped the pipe, and my shadow absorbed it like nothing while I was still standing on the ground.
I smiled slightly before bending down and carefully placing my hand inside my shadow. At first, I couldn't grasp anything, even after lightly feeling around inside my shadow, but with a simple thought, the pipe reached my hand without hesitation. I pulled the pipe out and saw it completely intact.
"So, some kind of inventory inside your shadows?" Aizawa asked curiously. I smiled widely.
"It would seem so." I said as I dropped the pipe back into the shadow, this time my right hand going to the slightly loose sleeve on my left arm. I could feel the shadows within my clothes connecting to my inventory and grabbed the pipe. I pulled the pipe out from the shadow on my forearm and drew it like a sword. "Yeah, this will do," I said with a wide smile.
"That's amazing! Then you can place yourself in your shadows?! You can make other people enter?! Time passes inside your shadows?! It's capable of-AAHH!" Ruby screamed as she fell into my shadow.
" Yes, I can use it on other people." I said playfully.
"Get her out of there." Aizawa said dryly as he looked at me unimpressed. I snorted, ducked down once more, and reached into my shades. With a small thought, I grabbed Ruby's clothes and pulled them up.
"That was amazing! Again!" Ruby laughed as I pulled her out of my shadow, her lower half still inside her. "It was like swimming in complete darkness! I could see through your shadow like a big mirror, but I couldn't get through! I think if I pushed harder, I should be able to get out, but I didn't want to try! But there's no air in there either, so I would have run out of air at some point!"
"Are you done?" I asked Ruby playfully. She just smiled at me.
" Nope!" Ruby said amusedly, I rolled my eyes before completely pulling Ruby out of my shadow.
"Can you feel any kind of limit?" Aizawa asked simply, I hummed.
"Not really? I felt a slight tug, but it was so faint that I didn't really think anything of it." I said simply.
"Is there a documented inventory-type quirk? The only one that comes to mind is video games, and those are based on quantity of items or size," Taylor said, confused.
"There are also some by weight," Azula pointed out with a shrug. "So it can basically be anything."
"Guess we'll have to find out." I said simply as I approached a nearby piece of rubble. It was pretty large, about half my size. I got close enough for my shadow to touch the large rock and activated my Quirk. My shadow extended under the entire rock before the rubble fell without any resistance into my shadow. I shuddered slightly and took a step back.
"Are you okay, Miyamura?" Aizawa asked carefully. I nodded.
"I'm fine. It just caught me off guard." I said simply as I straightened up without any problems. I looked at my arms, "But I figured out exactly which one it is. It's by weight. I should be able to fit anything I want inside my shadows, but I have to bear the weight of everything I keep there, as if I were carrying it." I said simply as a smile began to spread.
"Uh… Izumi… you can lift tons, right?" Ruby asked, her eyes wide. My smile got really wide.
"Yeah, I can do that," I said playfully.
"So, you have no limit on your inventory, huh? Damn your luck." Taylor said dryly, I laughed lightly.
"It's better than that! I can finally keep training! The UA weights were already getting slightly light! Now, I can place a building inside my shadow and let the quirk's weight do its work! The best part is that the weight is distributed evenly throughout my body. It's perfect!" I said excitedly.
I had hit a plateau with my training a while back; the only way to get stronger was to simply increase my muscle strength. However, as my body adapted to the weight, it became increasingly challenging to find weights that were both small enough and heavy enough to train comfortably.
Even UA, which had special weights designed for people with strength quirks, was lagging behind. So this was really wonderful!
"I guess that's it, huh?" Aizawa asked, taking off his glasses. "Despite your... general disposition, you're too self-aware to not know your limits, so try not to push yourself too hard." Aizawa said, and I nodded.
"Understood, sensei. Thanks for everything." I said with a smile. Aizawa nodded, and I was about to turn around when I shuddered violently. I felt something completely different inside my Quirk. Like it was connected to something. There were… 10 presences inside my shadow. 10 entities, but for some reason I could only sense that one of them was… 'alive', that was certainly the only term that came to mind.
They seemed to be animals and…
"Miyamura?" Aizawa asked slowly. I didn't respond, but my eyes widened.
Shadow manipulation, weight inventory, 10 animal presences. Everything finally clicked. It can't be. It can't fucking be. I have Ten Shadows!
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