"Jugram Van Hohenheim, get over here this instant." An old but powerful voice called out.
In response to the call, a young boy with long blonde hair and golden eyes emerged from a hedge of bushes. The boy, who looked no older than three or four years old, carried with him a stone hatched, which he had crudely constructed. He wore clothes that were more accurately called rags, with an assortment of homemade tools in the waistband of his pants. As he emerged, an old man looked down at him disapprovingly.
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"How many times have I told you to wait until your quirk emerges before you are allowed to explore the nearby forest, let alone try to build anything alone."
"I'm sorry, Grandpa," the boy said sweetly with large watering eyes.
"Ohh, I'm not falling for that young man," he said, grabbing the crude hatchet and the boy's other tools. "You're taking a bath, then going to your room to think about what you've done."
Jugram looked up at his grandfather and cursed under his breath. He had hoped that approaching the age where quirks manifested in this world would be enough to gain a little bit of freedom to stretch his legs and explore, but no. 'Reincarnation doesn't make sitting still easier. If anything, it raises the anticipation,' he thought with a scowl, marching off toward home.
It had been a few months since he had woken up in a new world and younger body. For the first few days, he thought that this was a more primitive world since he lived in a small village in the middle of the forest, but he saw cell phones and television sets around, which confused him further. Only when he had seen a child open their palm and release a gout of fire into the air did he realize that this world may have more to it than first met the eye.
After hearing exclamations about Quirks, heroes, and villains, he put the pieces together and realized that he was in the world of My Hero Academia. While not one of his favorite series, he knew a fair bit about the story and characters up until about halfway through the story. It wasn't the best set of information to work off of, but better than nothing.
However, that knowledge came with its own set of caveats as well. If the year the story had been set in was ever mentioned, Jugram did not know it, so he was entirely blind to where in the timeline he was until something big happened. Jugram had tried to inquire about the world subtly, but his Grandfather, who had lived in this rural community for many decades, wasn't a great source of current information.
The other villagers weren't good sources either. Most would either embellish stories from the outside or know nothing beyond the basics. While the small town was out of the way, we all still lived in an era of technology, so it was hard to be too separated from the wider world. People knew the names of the big heroes like All Might, but none of the big shots ever came out to the community. 'It's not like there's much crime out here anyway.' Jugram thought idly.
The town also received the odd tourist or two every year, but nothing with much consistency. It was your average case of a small town living in a world full of superpowers. Until Jugram gained access to his own computer or phone, he couldn't do any deep investigations into trying to piece together where he was in the timeline. The most he knew, for now, is that the main story had not begun yet. Beyond that, he had no idea.
As for why he had been out in the forests alone, he was trying to complete a fort. Since there was no known way to accelerate the speed with which one's quirk could manifest, Jugram had been killing time by constructing the fort and clearing an area in the forest to train in the future. While there was no way to know what kind of quirk he would receive, if one at all, that didn't mean he shouldn't prepare a training ground.
However, he was now confined to his room, which would undoubtedly be a tortuous experience. As it turns out, three-year-olds are capable of pretty much nothing on their own. Usually, one could entertain oneself easily due to their undeveloped brains, but Jugram didn't get that advantage. He had to suffer through experiencing everything himself all of the time.
As he walked into his room unhappily, he paused as the sight of a large rat standing in the center of his room. The rodent lounged on a piece of blank paper, eating a pellet of food. The creature eyed him lazily as he walked in before undergoing a subtle change. The eyes of the rat snapped into sudden focus and there was a distinct human intelligence behind the eyes where there had been none before.
"What did I tell you about placing your rodents in my room unannounced, Rumi?" Jugram said with a groan.
In response, the rat turned, revealing a tin of paint. Then, the rat reached over and unscrewed the tin before carefully dipping a paw into the paint and writing on the paper. The rat stood on its two back legs, using its tail for support as it hunched over the paper and wrote out a message.
Turning to the rat, Jugram sighed once more. 'Dealing with kids is so annoying,' he thought. Why did it have to be that there were only two other kids in the village around his age? Both of them were obsessed with him. It makes sense that kids of similar ages flock together, but Jugram would have preferred to avoid contact with children in general.
It was strange enough to be a child himself, but interacting with other children was equally as bizarre and grating. He did everything in his power to avoid them, but unfortunately, Rumi had awakened a quirk that allowed her to control and share her senses with rodents. It wasn't a rare occurrence to find a rat or mouse in his room.
He would have been fine if he had been a teenager. It was still annoying to interact with others at that age, but it was better than being an actual child. At least you could have a semi-intelligible discussion at that age. Jugram could only suffer silently until he reached that age.
"Stop bullying the poor rats with your power, Rumi. That's animal cruelty," he said.
"Having a mouse crawl on my face in the middle of the night isn't scary. It's disturbing."
"Can't," he said with a shrug, "I'm grounded."
As the rat clumsily sketched its reply on the paper, he collapsed into his bed. Seeing Rumi's quirk in action naturally made him reflect on when he would get his own. The latest age most kids gain access to their quirk is around four years old, only a month away for Jugram. Although quirks can manifest at any age, technically, anything past four is extremely rare and most likely means you are quirkless statistically. So, it could be any moment that he could get his quirk.
By the time he thought through this, the rat was waiting impatiently for him to read and respond.
With that last message, the rat violently shook its head, and the human intelligence behind its eyes quickly faded. With Rumi no longer controlling the creature, it looked at me and gave an almost sympathetic look before starting to clean itself.
Any rats or mice Rumi interfaced with had their intelligence altered permanently. Their intelligence mostly rose or decreased slightly, but this rat seemed to have gained a more substantial boost. Jugram examined the creature from his spot in bed but quickly put it out of his mind.
After successfully interfacing with the rat, it was now permanently bonded to Rumi. The rat would make its way back to her without any of his help, so he ignored the creature. With any luck it would have gained enough intelligence to clean up the mess before it left, so he wouldn't step on wet paint when getting up.
However, the moment he closed his eyes and began to relax, his body seized up. Jugram sat in confusion for a moment before he entirely lost control of his body and violently started to spasm harder. 'My quirk manifesting,' he thought dully as his body thrashed violently, his mind beginning to fade into a sea of blackness.
The last thing he saw was the rat above him, squeaking loudly. Panic is etched in every one of the rodent's movements.
"Get Grandpa." he managed to mutter before his consciousness faded completely.