Dream World, Dream City, Shirokuma Cafe.
It had now been seven days since Dante and his friends had arrived in the Dream World, and it had now been seven days since Dante had tasked his friends with finding their new quirks. During those seven days, Dante had done a lot of things, he already had a big list of powers he wanted to give himself, and all of them were powers from animes and movies he liked in his past life.
Unlike his friends who had chosen a specific path of power, Dante had opted to become a jack of all trades, he decided to give himself powers of all kinds so that his enemies would never be able to know his next move.
"50 eh... That's quite the number... Thankfully, I have a way to make it possible..."
Fifty was the number of abilities Dante had chosen for himself. Some of them were simple, others were more complex, but at the end of the day, Dante knew for sure that even his new way of earning dream energy would not be enough to allow him to gather enough energy to give himself all the powers he and his friends wanted.
'That's why I need to play with the details a bit.'
Dante's way of reducing the cost he would have to pay had already been explained in the past, he would simply change the price he and his friends would have to pay to cast an ability. To be more specific, Dante wanted the cost of all his abilities to be stamina, by burning his stamina, he would be able to re-create any ability he wanted to use.
If for example, Dante gave himself the ability to do the legendary Kamehameha, the way the skill works would require him to have ki. Since Dante didn't have ki in him, he would have to dream of having some, which would cost him a lot since ki is a strong power system from another world. By using his quirk to change the cost of the skill from ki to stamina, Dante would drastically reduce the price of the skill, plus with his powers, he could change the cost of the skill while still keeping the same effects of the skill. That way, if he wanted to, Dante could burn his stamina instead of chakra to activate a Sharingan, burn stamina to teleport, transform into the Vasto Lorde form of Ichigo, and much more things.
'Of course, the stronger the skill, the more stamina it will cost. When it comes to transformations, my stamina will continuously burn as long as I maintain the transformation... The stronger the transformation, the greater the stamina cost.'
Another aspect that would determine the stamina cost would be the dimension of the attack, for example, if he wanted to use an ability related to time or space manipulation or any other advance ability of that rank, then the stamina cost would be absurd.
'That's why it will be extremely important for me to have a big stamina pool.'
Just like that, Dante spent the next two hours drinking orange juice (he was still five years old after all) and thinking of how he would use the abilities he would give himself. It was only after two hours that Dante was finally joined by one of his three friends.
"Yo Dante! Sorry for the wait!"
Lifting his head, Dante saw a little brown skin boy running towards him with a big smile.
"Hi Hayato, it's been a while. Did you find what you wanted?"
Seeing his friend after seven stressful days was a happy occasion for Hayato, plus he was anxious to know if Dante could give him the powers he wanted, it would be such a waste if his friend were to tell him in the end that the abilities he chose were too expensive.
"Yeah, I found them! The abilities I chose are the ones I think are the best for me hehe!"
Seeing his friend happy with his choice made Dante smile.
"Good. Now let's wait for the others, you can tell us what abilities you chose when they get here."
"Alright! I can't wait!"
The duo did not have to wait too much, twenty minutes after Hayato's arrival, Kioko made her entrance, closely followed by Ren who arrived ten minutes after her.
"Sorry for the wait, Dante-kun, Hayato-kun..."
"Sorry for the wait guys, Thor-san just wouldn't let me go!"
Now that they were all reunited, Dante took some time to look at his friends that were sitting at his table one by one. Although he didn't know what they went through during the week, he could already see on their faces that they were happy with it, he could already feel their excitement.
Seeing that his friends were reaching the limits of their patience, Dante stopped teasing them and started what would probably be the most important discussion of their lives.
"Yosh, now that we are all here, we can finally start our meeting.
First of all, I will let you guys tell me how your week went, what you have done, what path you have chosen, and more importantly why you have chosen that path.
Ladies first so let's start with you Kioko-chan."
Now that the meeting had officially begun, Kioko and the rest finally dropped their smile and showed their most solemn expression.
"Mm. Regarding my week, I can only say that it went smoothly. I already had an idea of what kind of power I wanted so I just needed to find the ones holding those powers so that they could explain to me more clearly how those powers work.
I have to say that I have been really lucky when I went to Aurora Palace to gather some information, all the girls there decided to help me... Even Featherine-sama took me under her wing and helped me..."
When they heard that, the three boys smiled.
"Hahaha, so it really was because of you!"
"You have no idea how big of a commotion all of that caused."
"Haha, Featherine sure likes to do things on a grand scale, you indeed were lucky to earn her interest."
Hearing that only made Kioko blush, so she quickly continued, hoping to hide her embarrassment.
"After multiple days of research, we were able to find all the abilities I wanted, Featherine-sama even added some... In the end, I ended up with twenty-six abilities, most of them are already existing powers while some are ones I created myself.
All the abilities I chose can be put under the banner of darkness manipulation... that is the path I chose. I chose this as my quirk because I think darkness is something extremely versatile, it has no predetermined form, and it can become anything. The last reason that pushed me towards that path is simple... Darkness is everywhere."
After she was done talking, Kioko lifted her head and looked into the eyes of Dante without any ounce of doubt, Dante could even see the pride she had in this new quirk she created.
"I see, so your quirk was created by taking all the abilities you know that are connected to the concept of darkness, the whole forming an entirely new power... I understand. Then what about the name Kioko-chan?"
"The name?"
"Mm, don't tell me you will simply call it darkness manipulation right? It lacks flavor if you want my opinion!"
Hearing this, Kioko's eyes lighted up and a rare smile appeared on her face... though it was a creepy kind of smile.
"You are right... Then I shall call my quirk Dusk, the end of the day, a name fitting for a quirk that shall bring forth the end of the light hehehe..."
Hearing this, sweet started to appear on Dante's and the rest foreheads.
'I never knew that Kioko was one of them... a chuunibyou!'
Too scared to comment on her naming sense, Dante quickly changed the subject.
"A-Alright, Dusk it is then... W-What about you Ren?"
Knowing what Dante was trying to do, Ren nodded and went along with it.
"R-Right! Well, I think my week went pretty smoothly too, I managed to gather the help of a lot of people from the Three Cups Tavern...although I had to work hard for it...
The path I chose is a pretty simple one, all my abilities are related to lightning generation and manipulation... Although it's quite embarrassing to say, I chose this power because I think lightning is the representation of nature's power, of its wrath. If mother nature wants to punish someone, she will send lightning toward her target, I want to be the same, I want the power of lightning because I hope to punish the villains with it, I want them to fear me just like we humans fear lightning.
Just like Kioko, most of the abilities I chose are owned by someone else already, but there are some that I created myself... In total, I managed to gather thirty abilities."
Hearing Ren's passionate speech, Dante smiled and asked him.
"That's a good choice, I like it. What about the name?"
To this, Ren smiled bashfully and replied.
"Well, I'm not really good with names so let's just go with Lightning haha..."
Hearing a normal name, Dante let out a relieved sigh and continued.
"I see, so just like Kioko, your quirk is basically the ability to generate and manipulate an element, and you decided to add multiple abilities to it, I guess you want those abilities to be something like your ultimate moves or something... Lightning it is then, good, I like it! What about you Hayato?"
Now that it was his turn, Hayato smiled brightly and simply said.
"This week has been really interesting for me, I learned a lot of things!
To be honest, unlike you guys, I wasn't sure of what kind of powers I wanted for myself. You guys already know this but I'm not good at anything that requires me to think to think too much, I'm more of an instinctive type of guy.
I was already aware of such a thing, but after seeing you guys do complicated things all the time, I unconsciously tried to imitate you, I didn't want to be left behind... Without knowing, I was trying to be like you guys instead of trying to be myself, and when I was left alone in front of my future... I wasn't sure of what to do."
Hearing Hayato says this greatly surprised Dante and the rest, they had no idea that their little friend was going through such an identity crisis. Before they could even say anything though, Hayato continued.
"Thankfully, senior Sun Wukong from Heaven Mountain was kind enough to help me and put me back on the right path, thanks to him I was able to finally decide on what to do.
As I said, unlike you guys, I am more of an act-first, think-later type of guy, so powers that require me to think are useless to me right now. Although I know that I will have to work on it, for now, I rather take the path that is best suited for me... The path of the free-style fighter that is!"
Free-style fighters are people who use just their bodies, they are considered 'brawlers' or 'street fighters' and not martial artists. An advantage of freestyle is its adaptation abilities, free-stylers are not bound by the forms and exercises of style-base fighters. The best example of a free-style fighter is Monkey D. Luffy.
"After thinking for a long time, I decided that my quirk would be a simple one, I want a quirk that boosts all my physical aspects: strength, endurance, agility, movement speed, dex-"
Before he could finish, Hayato was interrupted by his close friend Dante.
"Wait a second Hayato! Are you sure that that's all you want? If you want such a thing to be your quirk, know that it's something I had already planned to give you all, you can pick something else."
Seeing his friends worrying about him made Hayato smile even more.
"Hahaha! Relax Dante, such a thing would be way too simple, even for me!
What I want isn't some mere body-enhancing quirk, what I want is a quirk that can make me an unbeatable beast in close-quarter combat... I named my quirk Invincible, a quirk that forces my body to evolve as I fight!"
This time, Dante wasn't sure if he understood what his friends had in mind.
"A quirk that forces your body to evolve while fighting? I'm not sure I get it, can you be more specific?"
Hayato simply smiled and explained further.
"Well, it's simple really. My idea is to put everything into my close-quarter combat abilities. After a lot of thinking, I managed to find twenty-three abilities that match the way I envision my fighting style to be, all of them are close-quarter skills. To boost those abilities even more, I want a quirk that will make my body an even better conduit for those skills, that's why I want a quirk that forces my body to evolve as I fight."
After that, Hayato took a quick break before resuming his explanation.
"What I mean by such a quirk is simple, I want my body to be able to evolve depending on the person I am facing. Let's say for example that I am fighting old man White Beard, he is known for his ability to generate earthquakes anywhere he wants and his monstrous physical strength.
What I want Invincible to do is that while I am fighting the old man, I want the quirk to make me evolve in a direction that will lead me to victory! I mean that while I am fighting, I want it to boost my physical strength to a point where it is equal to the old man and even surpass him as the fight continues, I want the quirk to boost my endurance to a level that my body can handle the earthquakes generated by the old monster, I want it to boost my movement and attack speed to a point the old guy can't keep up, I want it to give me the ability to fly if it's necessary, and the list continues...
I want the quirk to determine by itself what I need to win and give me the abilities I need to win my fight and boost my aspects of strength to a point where my victory is secured... Do you understand what I mean? Is it possible?"
Hayato's explanation was followed by a long silence, Hayato's idea was actually a really good one. When two people fight, they usually spend the majority of the fight trying to find the weaknesses of their opponent by using their strengths. When they have found their opponent's weaknesses, they then use all their power to defeat their foe even at the cost of an injury.
With Hayato's idea, he would become the nightmare of all fighters, he would become a foe whose weaknesses would disappear as the fight continues, a foe who would get stronger and have more and more abilities geared toward defeating his opponent... Hayato would then become a warrior that would truly become invincible the longer the fight continued!
Dante was only able to answer his friend a minute later.
"Oi... Didn't you just say that thinking wasn't your thing? How the hell can you come up with something like that without thinking?!"
Hearing his friend's outburst, Hayato only smiled sheepishly.
"I only said that thinking too much wasn't my thing, I never said I was stupid!"
After calming down, Dante started to think carefully about Hayato's idea, it was only ten minutes later that he was able to answer.
"It's hard... but not impossible."
Hearing this, Hayato was on the verge of exploding, but Dante stopped him.
"It's not impossible but we will have to make some changes, if not, it will cost me too much to make that possible."
At those words, Hayato immediately became tense.
"Relax, it's not as bad as you think.
First, although it is possible to make, we will have to make those 'evolutions' temporary, which means that everything your quirk gives you while you fight will disappear at the end of the fight.
The second change will be that you can't evolve infinitely, there needs to be a limit to how strong you can become... Thankfully, I should be able to put that limit above your opponent no matter who it is as long as he is in the same life level as you. That means that you should forget about fighting gods while hoping to make the fight long enough for you to evolve to their level to beat them, that's impossible for you.
Those are the two big modifications we would have to do to make your dream possible. Other than that, I would like you to also take a transformation ability among the abilities you chose. By giving yourself a transformation, you will have the option of completely changing your fighting style, which will give you more time to evolve enough to beat your opponent."
Hearing Dante's words, Hayato sighed in relief and found his smile back.
"Great! I like the transformation idea, plus there is one that I like a lot haha!"
Hearing that his friend was on board with his idea, Dante smiled and concluded.
"Good, so we have Dusk, Lightning, and, Invincible! You guys have chosen some really interesting ideas, I can't wait to see how you will use them in battle haha!
Now that we are done with that, let-"
"Wait a minute Dante! You still haven't told us what abilities you have chosen for yourself!"
"That's right! Although we all know your quirk, at least tell us what ability you chose!"
"They are right... Dante-kun..."
Hearing his friends, Dante showed them a big provocative smile and said loudly...
"In your dreams hahaha! If you want to know, you will have to wait!"
Before they could say anything else, Dante evoked the next important issue of their meeting.
"Alright guys, it is now time to talk about the next important topic of the day: our bodies, our builds!"
Even though they didn't want to give up, Hayato and the rest knew that there was something more important to discuss.
"What do you mean by 'talk about our bodies'?"
"Do you want us to hit the gym hahaha?"
"Stop talking Hayato-kun..."
Seeing his friends ready to listen, Dante explained something really important for their future.
"It's simple. As you guys know, the body is the foundation of everything, and that's why we must take this issue seriously.
We have all already decided in the past to give ourselves a body that would automatically strengthen all its components as time pass. With such a body, we are bound to have strong bodies in ten years, although we won't reach All Might's level, we should still be far ahead of weak body-enhancing quirks.
The thing is, as I have told you, I plan to change the cost of all our abilities to stamina, so stamina will be something crucial if we want to use our abilities. The thing with such an arrangement is that we are all different, some of us will rely on our abilities a lot, while others will rely on their body more, in brief, we don't have the same needs.
Regarding that, I have decided to give you all the right to choose a certain aspect of your body that will be strengthened a bit more than the others, a specialty if you want. You can choose between strength, stamina, speed (attack and movement speed), and endurance (your defense).
Depending on what you choose, your body will be different from the others, if you choose stamina, you will have more stamina than someone who chose strength, of course, that will also mean that you will have less strength than the other person.
You guys understand what I mean?"
After Dante was done explaining, Ren was the first the speak.
"I see... I understand why you said 'builds', it's really like choosing your build in a game."
Hayato then followed.
"So you are asking us to choose between a warrior, a mage, an assassin, and a tank? Am I right?"
Dante smiled, Hayato was right, it was basically like that.
"In a way yeah haha. Of course, if you want, you can choose multiple aspects to focus on, but you have to know that the more aspects you choose, the lesser the boons will be."
Hearing that, Kioko, Ren, and Hayato all stopped talking and started to think carefully. Although it may look like a minor issue, it could easily lead to major differences in their strength.
"I advise you guys to think carefully. If that can help you, know that I chose to prioritize my stamina. My future fighting style will rely heavily on my multiple abilities, so I will need a big stamina pool, plus, it's not like I will lack raw power with our bodies that will automatically get stronger, so I rather boost my stamina, that will allow me to dominate any enemy I will fight."
After hearing Dante, the trio had a better idea of what to do, and thirty minutes later, they all knew what they wanted to do.
Ren was the first to speak.
"I will pick Stamina and Endurance. With my lightning, speed and strength won't be a problem for me, plus, a lot of my abilities are quite draining so a boost in my stamina and my defensive abilities are more than welcome."
Then came Hayato.
"I will take Endurance. With my quirk, time is all I need to win so Endurance is a must for me."
Followed finally by Kioko.
"Stamina... Every use of my quirk will require me to burn a lot of stamina, plus I can already increase my strength and speed via my quirk, and I have other ways to assure my defense, so stamina is all I need."
After his friends were done Explaining their choices, Dante smiled.
"I see that you have put some thought behind those choices, good job.
Alright, that was the last thing I wanted to talk about with you guys, all we have to do now is to master those powers and make them our own, and for that, the only way is to train.
Starting from today, we have seventy years in the Dream World and ten years in the real world, adding up to eighty years total, to master those abilities and become true powerhouses. I will use these ten real-world years to gather as much dream energy as I can, and in ten years I will be able to give us our powers.
The only exception to that will be our bodies, I need four years to gather enough energy to change our bodies as we want, that way, our bodies will have six years of strengthening before we start our plan.
Alright, that's it, go and train like crazy guys... let's become so strong that what happened to us never happens again."
Hearing this, his three friends did not utter a word, it was useless. The three of them were already used to training hard, so it was nothing new for them. After Dante was done speaking, they quietly stood up and all left with determined eyes, they would work hard so that nobody would play with their lives ever again.
Watching his friends get further and further away, Dante took another sip of his orange juice and looked up at the black-purplish starry sky of the Dream World.
"Preparations are done... All I need to do now is to train."
Dante stayed like that for a couple more minutes, and without knowing, he started to think back to everything he went through since his reincarnation.
"Haha... I really was stupid wasn't I?"
Up till now, Dante had been what people would call a man-child. Because of his great powers, he became someone arrogant and thought that everything would go as he expected them to go, he thought himself to be invincible and that nothing in the world could harm him... The truth was that until now, he had not been a man, merely a kid proud of his powers.
"No more."
Those times were over. Dante would never forget the people that died in front of him, he would never forget all the mistakes he made during the first five years of his life.
"Starting from today, I will live an epic life, I will live the life I dreamed of for so long...
Yeah...
Starting today, I will be dreaming in My Hero Academia."