Ultra Responsibility (My Hero Academia X Spider-Man Reader)

Issue 17 - Chui Bacharu: Origin

Christmas lights were still on the tree. The cheap ones that blinked too fast and made your eyes hurt if you stared too long. The apartment was warm. The kind of warm you only get when everyone went to bed late, and someone forgot to turn the heating down.

Chui woke up to the smell of cinnamon rolls and the sound of her parents whisper-fighting over wrapping paper. She rolled over, still half-asleep, still dreaming of toy catalogues and hero merch.

And then the sparks started.

Not outside. Not fireworks. Inside.

The bedside alarm clock flickered. The digits scrambled into nonsense. The screen on her DS turned on by itself and blasted a jingle at full volume.

The TV in the living room snapped to life and began cycling through channels as if possessed. Every light in the house flashed, bright then dim then bright again, as if the building had developed a heartbeat.

Chui sat bolt upright, hair sticking out, eyes wide.

Her hands were glowing. Not like fire. Not like magic. Like static. Like she'd become the centre of every charge in the room.

The toys on her nightstand lifted an inch off the wood. Then two. Then it slid across the surface like an invisible hand was dragging it toward her palm.

She let out a frightened sound, and the toys stopped instantly, dropping as if they had been scolded.

And that's when her parents burst in.

Her mother froze in the doorway, mouth falling open. Her father came in behind her, blinking at the chaos: the TV flashing, the lights strobing, the toy robot Chui had forgotten she owned suddenly whirring to life and spinning in a circle.

Then they looked at Chui.

And their faces did something that felt like the sun turning on.

"Chui..." her mother breathed, voice shaking. "Is this...?"

Her father was already grinning, already stepping forward like he was afraid the moment might run away if he didn't grab it. "It's her quirk. It's her quirk!"

Chui's fear got drowned out by the way they looked at her.

Starstruck.

Proud in a way that didn't even fit inside the room.

They hugged her too hard, laughing, crying, calling relatives on Skype while the screens jittered and glitched around them, as if the house itself were trying to clap.

They paraded her around the living room as if she'd just been handed a crown.

"Do it again," her dad begged, voice full of wonder. "Make the lights dance!"

Chui lifted her hands slowly, like she was afraid of breaking something just by existing.

The fairy lights on the tree pulsed in time with her breathing.

She looked at the colours and felt something bloom inside her chest that had nothing to do with electricity.

To her, it was the best Christmas present a kid could ever get.

Because in their world, a quirk wasn't just a trick.

It was a prophecy.

Everyone said the day your quirk came in was the most important day of your life. More important than exams. More important than diplomas. More important than the first time you ever got kissed or the first time you ever got punched.

It sets your path.

If you hit the jackpot, you could be the next All Might.

And for a while, everyone made Chui believe she had.