Post by Mega on Dec 16, 2020 2:59:52 GMT -4
FUKUNAGA MASUYO
BASIC INFORMATION
Hero Alias: Mega
Player Name: lolmight
Faceclaim/Series: Shimazu/No Guns Life
Age: Fourty.
Gender: Female
Affiliation: Hero
Height: 2.866m
Weight: 248kg
Hair/Style: Shoulder-length black bob cut.
Skin/Scars: Deathly pale, slash scars littered about her body.
Eyes: Black sclera with rose irises, narrow in shape.
Notables: A pronounced spinal column and shark teeth.
Player Name: lolmight
Faceclaim/Series: Shimazu/No Guns Life
Age: Fourty.
Gender: Female
Affiliation: Hero
Height: 2.866m
Weight: 248kg
Hair/Style: Shoulder-length black bob cut.
Skin/Scars: Deathly pale, slash scars littered about her body.
Eyes: Black sclera with rose irises, narrow in shape.
Notables: A pronounced spinal column and shark teeth.
APPEARANCE AND PERSONALITY
Appearance:
Masuyo has something of a vicious appearance. She is a sort of cross between shark and person- and no ordinary shark at that. Most people don't even see her actual self, rather the armor she wears. Nevertheless, she stands nearly ten feet tall or almost three meters and sports a very powerful and dangerous build. Unlike many warriors of the past who embraced balance as being important- she isn't capable of such a thing, all power but no finesse. Scars litter her otherwise deathly pale skin from various incidents over her vigilante and hero career. Aside from her build, her skintone and hair sum up the only normal things about her; the latter being typically done up in a shoulder-length black bob cut. The viciousness of her form then comes into play, with alien Human-Shark black sclera and a little extra quirk quirkiness to give her piercing rose irises. Furthermore, her spinal column appears whether enhanced or not to be more pronounced with rigid small fin-like spikes going down its length on her back. True to the quirk, her teeth are also shark teeth- not to be confused with normal sharp fangs, rather truly identical in shape and form to that of sharks and more specifically the prehistoric Megalodon.
POSITIVE
✔ Upholding civil duty: Responsibility
✔ Veteran for a reason: Cleverness
✔ A warrior of the times: Courage
✔ Until the very end: Persistence
✔ An eye for every detail: Observation
NEGATIVE
✖ A piece of everything: Aggression
✖ The product of tainted motivation: Cynical
✖ Everyday is a new goal: Impulsiveness
✖ Built to battle, not bond: Intimidating
✖ Everyone is bad in some way: Censorious
LIKES
✔ Something tangible and tasty: Solid foods
✔ The thrill, being neck and neck: Competition
✔ A history of being Human: Nostalgia
✔ An inner child, undying: Creativity
✔ Medicine for mediocrity: Praise
DISLIKES
✖ Lies, white noise, insanity: Politics
✖ Again and again, and again: Routine
✖ Invitations of tragedy: Ignorance
✖ An omen of danger: Rotting sharks
✖ An instinctual, predatory aversion: Daylight
Personality:
Ms. Fukunaga has largely adopted life as a teacher and Hero. She still carries the animosity and bitter cynicism of her past days as a Vigilante, but by and large she's come a long way in being an approachable and sociable person. Like any successful teacher, whether it is because of the job or not she expresses care and attention towards others- particularly those with less experience than she. Much of her personality plays on the dynamics of weak and strong be it physical mental or emotional in nature. The friends or 'allies' (students included) get to see much more of her stern side, displaying that intimidating aggression but held back and restrained as to still provide a safe and healthy environment for everyone involved.
Contrary to her support systems that quite literally encase her, she metaphorically wears her heart on her sleeve. Driven largely on the impulses of a predator animal because of her quirk, she can often be incredibly predictable. If one knows the fact that a shark's a carnivore, they can safely assume Ms. Fukunaga also prefers meats over plants and vegetables (if she can even stomach them). This behavior while some might laugh, mock, or dislike it is much of who she is. Just as a shark functions in bursts of energy, so does she. Quiet one moment, she can typically end up talking ears off the next.
Regarding that dynamic of weakness once more, enemies receive something very different. They receive the undiluted characteristics her quirk has fused into her personality. All of the pity, condescension and abhorrence. Often a true battle against her- an actual enemy might come to see her as arrogant; and they may well be right in those moments. She loves thrills in life, things that get adrenaline pumping- battle, namely.
Finally, she has her personality quirks like any other. Though most notable is her irritation- a lot of things just rub her the wrong way like nails on chalk. Though unlike typical Human audio aversions, her portfolio of 'pet peeves' seems to be entirely different to the average. In fact, things that normal people find weird, she just simply doesn't.
Masuyo has something of a vicious appearance. She is a sort of cross between shark and person- and no ordinary shark at that. Most people don't even see her actual self, rather the armor she wears. Nevertheless, she stands nearly ten feet tall or almost three meters and sports a very powerful and dangerous build. Unlike many warriors of the past who embraced balance as being important- she isn't capable of such a thing, all power but no finesse. Scars litter her otherwise deathly pale skin from various incidents over her vigilante and hero career. Aside from her build, her skintone and hair sum up the only normal things about her; the latter being typically done up in a shoulder-length black bob cut. The viciousness of her form then comes into play, with alien Human-Shark black sclera and a little extra quirk quirkiness to give her piercing rose irises. Furthermore, her spinal column appears whether enhanced or not to be more pronounced with rigid small fin-like spikes going down its length on her back. True to the quirk, her teeth are also shark teeth- not to be confused with normal sharp fangs, rather truly identical in shape and form to that of sharks and more specifically the prehistoric Megalodon.
POSITIVE
✔ Upholding civil duty: Responsibility
✔ Veteran for a reason: Cleverness
✔ A warrior of the times: Courage
✔ Until the very end: Persistence
✔ An eye for every detail: Observation
NEGATIVE
✖ A piece of everything: Aggression
✖ The product of tainted motivation: Cynical
✖ Everyday is a new goal: Impulsiveness
✖ Built to battle, not bond: Intimidating
✖ Everyone is bad in some way: Censorious
LIKES
✔ Something tangible and tasty: Solid foods
✔ The thrill, being neck and neck: Competition
✔ A history of being Human: Nostalgia
✔ An inner child, undying: Creativity
✔ Medicine for mediocrity: Praise
DISLIKES
✖ Lies, white noise, insanity: Politics
✖ Again and again, and again: Routine
✖ Invitations of tragedy: Ignorance
✖ An omen of danger: Rotting sharks
✖ An instinctual, predatory aversion: Daylight
Personality:
Ms. Fukunaga has largely adopted life as a teacher and Hero. She still carries the animosity and bitter cynicism of her past days as a Vigilante, but by and large she's come a long way in being an approachable and sociable person. Like any successful teacher, whether it is because of the job or not she expresses care and attention towards others- particularly those with less experience than she. Much of her personality plays on the dynamics of weak and strong be it physical mental or emotional in nature. The friends or 'allies' (students included) get to see much more of her stern side, displaying that intimidating aggression but held back and restrained as to still provide a safe and healthy environment for everyone involved.
Contrary to her support systems that quite literally encase her, she metaphorically wears her heart on her sleeve. Driven largely on the impulses of a predator animal because of her quirk, she can often be incredibly predictable. If one knows the fact that a shark's a carnivore, they can safely assume Ms. Fukunaga also prefers meats over plants and vegetables (if she can even stomach them). This behavior while some might laugh, mock, or dislike it is much of who she is. Just as a shark functions in bursts of energy, so does she. Quiet one moment, she can typically end up talking ears off the next.
Regarding that dynamic of weakness once more, enemies receive something very different. They receive the undiluted characteristics her quirk has fused into her personality. All of the pity, condescension and abhorrence. Often a true battle against her- an actual enemy might come to see her as arrogant; and they may well be right in those moments. She loves thrills in life, things that get adrenaline pumping- battle, namely.
Finally, she has her personality quirks like any other. Though most notable is her irritation- a lot of things just rub her the wrong way like nails on chalk. Though unlike typical Human audio aversions, her portfolio of 'pet peeves' seems to be entirely different to the average. In fact, things that normal people find weird, she just simply doesn't.
HISTORY
Walking through the halls of Yuuei, the teachers head came just shy of scraping the ceiling. Clad in bulky looking metal plates and armor, only but the rose glow of her eyes shone through the dark visor of her helmet. It was a quiet evening, just how she preferred them these days. The sun was setting, the students had as usual left in the middle of the day; it was Saturday afterall. She had been sleeping in the teachers lounge, but she figured it was about time she took a seat at her desk to review some papers.
Ducking into the room and pacing over to the sturdy chair with cautious footfalls, she'd take a seat. In front of her was a wave of nostalgia she didn't quite need right now- but emotions never waited, especially for her. Letting out a sigh, the memories came flooding back as she laid eyes on her CV.
Northern Japan, 2034.
Masuyo was born in an absolutely, perfectly ordinary time. There were no superpowers, no hyper-complex support equipment; sure technology was advancing rapidly, but it was nothing like it'd be in three decades. Just another daughter born in one of hundreds of hospitals scattered around the country with two parents who that moment had instead meant the world to. As a baby Masuyo was hell to get to cooperate, even if she should seemingly be starving she remembered hearing stories that she was slapping away spoons of food since she was six months old. She never was that cooperative, always trying to cause problems if things weren't always tense.
That trait only exacerbated when she became old enough to actually retain memory and function in society. That would've made her four years old, a milestone only because it'd be the last year that the world was the same. When she was five, the news would be covering an isolated phenomena that'd bring with it a wave of change. She still remembered her kindergarten teachers reaction when they must've watched it on their phone, because the very same night when she returned home she got to see a rerun of it.
That was 2041, to be precise.
Of course, while her parents were skeptical and joked about it for the most part, for a child it was awesome! A rebel seven years too soon or not, she could get behind glowing hands. They were just like some of the movies and TV shows her parents would watch with her, while the guy with glowing hands wasn't shooting beams or anything, that could be what it was!
That was the first day, at least. The 'joke' as her parents took it stopped being funny after a week of consistent reporting from most news outlets they were familiar with both foreign and domestic. When news stories have little factual foundations, there's only one mention of the story for views before it's buried under the rug and never touched again. Though instead stations kept coming out with exclusives with relevant people, more information, at least as much as the people scrambling to get the whole situation under wraps fed them.
Then when the news started to report on similar occurrences, that was the last nail in the coffin. It was definitely rare to find someone who could outright deny the validity of what was going on. Only the most devote of conspiracy theorists could claim that the entire world was coordinating a targeted run of fake propaganda- and even then their claims would be baseless; why this? It doesn't serve much of a purpose other than just being interesting news, at least for most people at the time.
Masuyo, turning six by this point was now actively engaging in the news- a strange thing for a kid so young, but it was unavoidable with her parents hogging the TV all of the time. When she thought back, it was either 2042 or 2043 that an actual quirk effected her in her life. It was a distant connection, friend of a friend's parents friends kind of distant, but apparently the resultant volatile quirk the person had caused a disaster that pulled out one of her friends from school. Some kind of acidic skin, glowing hands was one thing but... If there was a chance to just blow up or melt, that was terrifying to her.
It wasn't all about the emergence of what'd come to be known as 'quirks' however. After all, at six years old Masuyo was a participating student at school who'd made friends and elected themselves as the class mob boss. Whoever she had a problem with, a lot of other kids seemingly made up problems to pick with them to. It was all of the way back then that some of the earliest signs of her own quirk had manifested, but at the time she and no one else in her life had any expectations of that. When she'd discovered her own quirk had roots so deep in her past, it gave her a sort of pride from being one of the people to have a quirk in the first wave.
Nevertheless, as a kid she was largely a product of a volatile shifting world. What started as relatively unnoticeable through her younger years became having to walk through crowds of protesters waving around signs and posters slandering 'Quirkers', a term she still uses to this day to refer to people with Quirks. Even as a kid she was scared of them because of what she'd heard and just how viciously her own family and other adults had come down on them. Gone was the idea that it could be superhero stuff, in was thoughts of it being some impossible disease that made people self destruct or want to hurt others; the imagination of a child.
It was so prevalent that her most famous insult in school was Quirker. Whether or not they had quirks (which for a long time nobody seemed to) she'd call them Quirkers or Quirker lovers, whatever got the best reaction from her target for any particular day. Of course, it stopped being a word to sling around when a kids neck elongated during morning recess. The trauma she had from that stuck all the way until she started to realize she had a quirk of her own, as without the context of 'Quirks' it was like sci-fi horror.
That kid never came back to class, and she never tried to find him years later.
Northern Japan, 2045.
Ten years old, was the age her quirk fully manifested. By this point quirks were just... Confusing, a couple of kids had gotten them in her class alone, and it was scary to round corners not knowing if what you might see can logically be called Human or not. The world was changing, and for a child that seemingly benefited from stability she was often panicked. By this point she'd seen good and bad and had similarly mixed feelings. Was she being left behind? Though, on the other hand she was terrified of getting a quirk. Yet when considering the increasingly young age the quirks were manifesting paired with her aging, it was almost inevitable unless she fell into the small minority of people that'd never get a quirk.
She did not.
Though she did have at least the privilege of a smooth transition to being a Quirker. If her quirk had fully set in two years back, she might've never come back to class either. Tensions weren't dead by any means, but there were enough Quirkers around to stand up for themselves. Though even among them, her inability to control her power output at the time put her in a very scary place.
It started with her eyes turning black and rose, her spine jutting out and her teeth becoming razor sharp like those of a shark in the middle of her grade two class; even worse, during a test. Needless to say while there was gawking and Quirker gossip, she didn't really get as many screams as some of the first had. People were getting used to a society with Quirkers, because those protesters from a few years back? A majority of them now had Quirks in themselves or their personal circles of friends and family.
She was only gone from school for a week, and of everyone in her life only her parents took it poorly. After all, neither of them had quirks yet and they were still against Quirkers- one could only imagine the conflicted beliefs presented when their very child was one of the people they were afraid of. Conflicted with feelings of love, fear and hate from being spiralled into the politics and media depictions of riots and tragic disasters, law reforms, they began to unintentionally neglect Masuyo. Which was minor for the most part, but became bad for her when it became apparent that she was getting bigger faster than the rest of her peers on top of having incredible strength and healing cuts in minutes.
She'd find herself in an extreme Quirker isolation camp by twelve, or 2048. Thankfully it (though some likely were) wasn't violent and wasn't some government experiment. Instead it was something of a correctional facility without the guilt, since most Quirkers here just passively destroyed things around them without the proper precautions. Being there meant she'd spent all the time she ever would with her family, she didn't really see them after that point. Though to be fair, she might've ignored a few suspicious phone calls once or twice in her life.
The Quirker containment facility still offered education and teachers would come in- after all, it isn't often that a Teacher qualifies for hazard pay. Getting such a fat check meant they got a surprisingly stellar education from some of the most fanatical teachers out there. Despite the kindred spirits all around her; other dangerous students, the great education, and the cozy all in one place to stay she still carried on her behaviour as a problem starter. If there were any incidents, typically she was at the root of it for instigating people and riling them up.
Somewhere along the line she learned she liked to fight as well. She definitely gave the containment staff their paycheck, because by and large she was the only one that needed to be actively supervised; especially because like a plague her bad behavior spread to those in her cliques. That made it difficult to reintegrate her into society, but based on a few sessions she'd had with a psychologist supervisors believed her behaviour was largely a product of being cooped up while having exposure to Quirkers that could handle her power.
So she'd be allowed to like in normal schools, go out for a lunch break when middle school started. She'd had preparatory classes for catching up with how the outside world had changed. They taught her about the law reforms, quirk bans, the state of protests, safe places and dangerous places, the list went on. All just to go out for forty five minutes with a weekly released allowance to get lunch from a place she liked- small things, one step at a time.
She was thirteen by this point, but it'd be her 15th year of the great journey of life or 2050 where she'd actually get a taste of what quirks were becoming. Good versus evil, order versus chaos. It was one of those moments where a decision could shape her life. She could've at some point decided to exploit her powers to steal food from the place herself, she could've ignored it, or what she did do.
She could've stepped into an armed robbery.
Needless to say just about everything that one might expect to happen happened. She was injured and took down the crook.
While she remembered being in a hospital bed for weeks afterwards in the infirmary of the containment facility, she also remembered the thrill of both fighting and doing something she felt was good at the same time. After her (fast) recovery, she was assigned a handler to make sure she stayed out of the wrong kind of trouble. The thing was, long before 2070 governments were reeling from having to deal with Quirk crime. Frankly, it was that the legislation and manpower to mobilize a mass Quirker recruitment campaign in order to make a superpowered police force wasn't there or wasn't conceptualized until much later.
In Masuyo's case, she was something of the trial. It wasn't necessarily official work, but her handler was responsible for essentially sicking her on quirkers doing crime. Truthfully, even to this day Masuyo wasn't really aware of how official it was, it could've been the actions of one place or it could've eluded to a bigger process. She was one to count her blessings however, and she wasn't about to test the few she had by poking her head where she shouldn't have.
By this point she'd gotten the personality of a runt, sticking low, causing trouble and clashing with villains that were relayed to her. Back then they weren't even called Villains, like all the rest they were just criminals until the later part of those years. She had a closer connection to her handler than even her parents back in the day, who continued to exploit her quirk as she propelled through the rest of her tutor-style schooling to handle crime where the police just couldn't. It would only be after an entire decade passed that it'd be deemed like many of the other self-starting vigilantes in the world at that time, she to would be a relatively risk free addition to the roster of free police.
And so while there would've been evidence of her presence from dozens and dozens of battles, it wasn't until roughly 2060, when she was 25 years old that she'd be in a spotlight. Having stayed as a guard in the containment facility for many years after her official graduation, she kept watch over students and made sure they didn't become a danger to themselves or each other with their quirks. Having been practically geared for battle, her handler putting her through so much of it during her childhood, she was already a monster to reckon with- far superior to greenhorn Quirkers that didn't have a handle on their power.
But when she was free, that was a different feeling. She could be anyone, do anything, and she'd quickly become known as a ruthless vigilante self proclaimed with the name 'Mega' following the calling cards that many of the other Vigilantes had been making at the time. Whether she on some level knew her quirks origins or just thought the idea of 'Megahuman' was cool or not isn't really known, but her reputation never proceeded her. She went through her own story, her own journey of a world of heroes that follow no laws. Her bronze age was a bunch of raving fans on the darkweb collecting images of her crime scenes, villains out cold in craters, hanging off streetlights, pinned to the ground by guardrails- the list went on. It wasn't even really called a bronze age, nobody had become sophisticated enough to really start treating vigilantes that way yet. Instead it was just her beginning, and as she rapidly reached her present state her activity only got more and more insane.
It was a ride she nor her elusive fans couldn't get off of. The thrill of battle, the feeling of coming out on top. The best experience of it all when she thought back was definitely that feeling of rubbing the filth criminals fume back in their faces, making them feel as pathetic as they were. It was that predatory instinct of hers to prey on the weak, but nobody could deny her goalpost for 'weak' was absurd. In her thirties she became less known for creating craters with her victims and more for collapsing buildings on them.
She was getting bigger, a reality of her quirk that'd continue until she died. It wasn't much of a surprise, much to her constant worries that were asking when she'd be unfit to fight rather than if. No matter how much muscle she had, there would be a tipping point where she just couldn't really lead a healthy life. The opinions of underground doctors that reached out after seeing the results were much the same. She might have three decades left at best, and that was in her mid thirties while considering the fact that like sharks, she seemed to be aging slower than normal Humans.
Of course, health scares and a light at the end of the tunnel aside, she still had her self imposed job to do. The crime scenes she left would get more and more brutal each year, as she only got bigger and stronger. It was great for attention, and terrible for her long-term well being. That was when the opportunity swung by that was just what she needed.
It was another time of change. 2071, in more recent memory Mega recalled that'd have made her thirty six at the time. She got a call in the strangest of places- she had no phone and homed up in a literal sewer colony of vigilantes that just crawled out from below to do good. Didn't help that she had to walk so far each way because of being unable to fit through manholes, but it was just one of the many things she did to get that moment of thrill and power over her victims. Most of the rest of her time though was spent eating rations and sleeping- making up for almost sixty percent of a twenty four hour period. So getting a call on a rigged up landline all the way down there from someone claiming to be a suit? It was weird, reminded her of her days with a handler. Neither good nor bad, but she knew how it felt to be sicked on things and not have to worry about the logistics, it was a little comforting.
More importantly were the offers extended. Proper pay, equipment support, police and government cooperation, and opportunities for a proper career out of this stuff. Who could pass that up? After all she never cared about actually doing good, she just liked to fight. Getting that phone call was just a way to do it more, and with less problems in the way. Not to mention some possible solutions to her very peculiar growing problem.
And just like that, four years of drastic change. The support industry was just rising up to support Pro Heroes, something that she now... Was, which was strange for her to consider. The passed four years were something like a new leaf for her. While arguably she'd been declining due to her growth being more of a hindrance than a boon, she has been getting stronger and able to wreak more havoc. She's known for requiring a team of Heroes to mitigate her collateral when she goes all out, and now in the spotlight her previous 'eras' were all tied together and given fitting names.
She also got her now signature suit, the epitome of a humanoid metallic sarcophagus skintight sealing her within. It wasn't like it was a life she wanted to lead, but it meant they might be able to add decades onto her life while technology advanced to find a more permanent solution. In the meantime she had to cut out solid foods and have an operation done to start eating through a tube directly attached to her stomach through the abdominal wall. As part of this whole package, her house was equipped to handle taking off her suit thereby encasing her in a sleeping chamber; a lot of gruesome details that she keeps to herself. Needless to say, her Pro Hero package crossed all her t's and while messy, the suit is capable of adding years to her life.
Which brings her to the current year, now suffering from the effects of career decline because of health. Masuya by this point could only able to go out doing Hero work for a couple hours a day. She was noting a faster rate of growth the older she got, and it was harder for her mind to keep up with her body. So, the only avenue of sustainable income to maintain the support she had was teaching. With her experience as a guard at her facility she was schooled in paired with her connections with her handler, she had a sweet CV whipped up and a great reference.
And in the end she was sitting at her desk, reminiscing on if it was all worth it, and if it only got worse from here.
Could she turn herself around? Defy fate? Only the future would give the answer.
Ducking into the room and pacing over to the sturdy chair with cautious footfalls, she'd take a seat. In front of her was a wave of nostalgia she didn't quite need right now- but emotions never waited, especially for her. Letting out a sigh, the memories came flooding back as she laid eyes on her CV.
Northern Japan, 2034.
Masuyo was born in an absolutely, perfectly ordinary time. There were no superpowers, no hyper-complex support equipment; sure technology was advancing rapidly, but it was nothing like it'd be in three decades. Just another daughter born in one of hundreds of hospitals scattered around the country with two parents who that moment had instead meant the world to. As a baby Masuyo was hell to get to cooperate, even if she should seemingly be starving she remembered hearing stories that she was slapping away spoons of food since she was six months old. She never was that cooperative, always trying to cause problems if things weren't always tense.
That trait only exacerbated when she became old enough to actually retain memory and function in society. That would've made her four years old, a milestone only because it'd be the last year that the world was the same. When she was five, the news would be covering an isolated phenomena that'd bring with it a wave of change. She still remembered her kindergarten teachers reaction when they must've watched it on their phone, because the very same night when she returned home she got to see a rerun of it.
That was 2041, to be precise.
Of course, while her parents were skeptical and joked about it for the most part, for a child it was awesome! A rebel seven years too soon or not, she could get behind glowing hands. They were just like some of the movies and TV shows her parents would watch with her, while the guy with glowing hands wasn't shooting beams or anything, that could be what it was!
That was the first day, at least. The 'joke' as her parents took it stopped being funny after a week of consistent reporting from most news outlets they were familiar with both foreign and domestic. When news stories have little factual foundations, there's only one mention of the story for views before it's buried under the rug and never touched again. Though instead stations kept coming out with exclusives with relevant people, more information, at least as much as the people scrambling to get the whole situation under wraps fed them.
Then when the news started to report on similar occurrences, that was the last nail in the coffin. It was definitely rare to find someone who could outright deny the validity of what was going on. Only the most devote of conspiracy theorists could claim that the entire world was coordinating a targeted run of fake propaganda- and even then their claims would be baseless; why this? It doesn't serve much of a purpose other than just being interesting news, at least for most people at the time.
Masuyo, turning six by this point was now actively engaging in the news- a strange thing for a kid so young, but it was unavoidable with her parents hogging the TV all of the time. When she thought back, it was either 2042 or 2043 that an actual quirk effected her in her life. It was a distant connection, friend of a friend's parents friends kind of distant, but apparently the resultant volatile quirk the person had caused a disaster that pulled out one of her friends from school. Some kind of acidic skin, glowing hands was one thing but... If there was a chance to just blow up or melt, that was terrifying to her.
It wasn't all about the emergence of what'd come to be known as 'quirks' however. After all, at six years old Masuyo was a participating student at school who'd made friends and elected themselves as the class mob boss. Whoever she had a problem with, a lot of other kids seemingly made up problems to pick with them to. It was all of the way back then that some of the earliest signs of her own quirk had manifested, but at the time she and no one else in her life had any expectations of that. When she'd discovered her own quirk had roots so deep in her past, it gave her a sort of pride from being one of the people to have a quirk in the first wave.
Nevertheless, as a kid she was largely a product of a volatile shifting world. What started as relatively unnoticeable through her younger years became having to walk through crowds of protesters waving around signs and posters slandering 'Quirkers', a term she still uses to this day to refer to people with Quirks. Even as a kid she was scared of them because of what she'd heard and just how viciously her own family and other adults had come down on them. Gone was the idea that it could be superhero stuff, in was thoughts of it being some impossible disease that made people self destruct or want to hurt others; the imagination of a child.
It was so prevalent that her most famous insult in school was Quirker. Whether or not they had quirks (which for a long time nobody seemed to) she'd call them Quirkers or Quirker lovers, whatever got the best reaction from her target for any particular day. Of course, it stopped being a word to sling around when a kids neck elongated during morning recess. The trauma she had from that stuck all the way until she started to realize she had a quirk of her own, as without the context of 'Quirks' it was like sci-fi horror.
That kid never came back to class, and she never tried to find him years later.
Northern Japan, 2045.
Ten years old, was the age her quirk fully manifested. By this point quirks were just... Confusing, a couple of kids had gotten them in her class alone, and it was scary to round corners not knowing if what you might see can logically be called Human or not. The world was changing, and for a child that seemingly benefited from stability she was often panicked. By this point she'd seen good and bad and had similarly mixed feelings. Was she being left behind? Though, on the other hand she was terrified of getting a quirk. Yet when considering the increasingly young age the quirks were manifesting paired with her aging, it was almost inevitable unless she fell into the small minority of people that'd never get a quirk.
She did not.
Though she did have at least the privilege of a smooth transition to being a Quirker. If her quirk had fully set in two years back, she might've never come back to class either. Tensions weren't dead by any means, but there were enough Quirkers around to stand up for themselves. Though even among them, her inability to control her power output at the time put her in a very scary place.
It started with her eyes turning black and rose, her spine jutting out and her teeth becoming razor sharp like those of a shark in the middle of her grade two class; even worse, during a test. Needless to say while there was gawking and Quirker gossip, she didn't really get as many screams as some of the first had. People were getting used to a society with Quirkers, because those protesters from a few years back? A majority of them now had Quirks in themselves or their personal circles of friends and family.
She was only gone from school for a week, and of everyone in her life only her parents took it poorly. After all, neither of them had quirks yet and they were still against Quirkers- one could only imagine the conflicted beliefs presented when their very child was one of the people they were afraid of. Conflicted with feelings of love, fear and hate from being spiralled into the politics and media depictions of riots and tragic disasters, law reforms, they began to unintentionally neglect Masuyo. Which was minor for the most part, but became bad for her when it became apparent that she was getting bigger faster than the rest of her peers on top of having incredible strength and healing cuts in minutes.
She'd find herself in an extreme Quirker isolation camp by twelve, or 2048. Thankfully it (though some likely were) wasn't violent and wasn't some government experiment. Instead it was something of a correctional facility without the guilt, since most Quirkers here just passively destroyed things around them without the proper precautions. Being there meant she'd spent all the time she ever would with her family, she didn't really see them after that point. Though to be fair, she might've ignored a few suspicious phone calls once or twice in her life.
The Quirker containment facility still offered education and teachers would come in- after all, it isn't often that a Teacher qualifies for hazard pay. Getting such a fat check meant they got a surprisingly stellar education from some of the most fanatical teachers out there. Despite the kindred spirits all around her; other dangerous students, the great education, and the cozy all in one place to stay she still carried on her behaviour as a problem starter. If there were any incidents, typically she was at the root of it for instigating people and riling them up.
Somewhere along the line she learned she liked to fight as well. She definitely gave the containment staff their paycheck, because by and large she was the only one that needed to be actively supervised; especially because like a plague her bad behavior spread to those in her cliques. That made it difficult to reintegrate her into society, but based on a few sessions she'd had with a psychologist supervisors believed her behaviour was largely a product of being cooped up while having exposure to Quirkers that could handle her power.
So she'd be allowed to like in normal schools, go out for a lunch break when middle school started. She'd had preparatory classes for catching up with how the outside world had changed. They taught her about the law reforms, quirk bans, the state of protests, safe places and dangerous places, the list went on. All just to go out for forty five minutes with a weekly released allowance to get lunch from a place she liked- small things, one step at a time.
She was thirteen by this point, but it'd be her 15th year of the great journey of life or 2050 where she'd actually get a taste of what quirks were becoming. Good versus evil, order versus chaos. It was one of those moments where a decision could shape her life. She could've at some point decided to exploit her powers to steal food from the place herself, she could've ignored it, or what she did do.
She could've stepped into an armed robbery.
Needless to say just about everything that one might expect to happen happened. She was injured and took down the crook.
While she remembered being in a hospital bed for weeks afterwards in the infirmary of the containment facility, she also remembered the thrill of both fighting and doing something she felt was good at the same time. After her (fast) recovery, she was assigned a handler to make sure she stayed out of the wrong kind of trouble. The thing was, long before 2070 governments were reeling from having to deal with Quirk crime. Frankly, it was that the legislation and manpower to mobilize a mass Quirker recruitment campaign in order to make a superpowered police force wasn't there or wasn't conceptualized until much later.
In Masuyo's case, she was something of the trial. It wasn't necessarily official work, but her handler was responsible for essentially sicking her on quirkers doing crime. Truthfully, even to this day Masuyo wasn't really aware of how official it was, it could've been the actions of one place or it could've eluded to a bigger process. She was one to count her blessings however, and she wasn't about to test the few she had by poking her head where she shouldn't have.
By this point she'd gotten the personality of a runt, sticking low, causing trouble and clashing with villains that were relayed to her. Back then they weren't even called Villains, like all the rest they were just criminals until the later part of those years. She had a closer connection to her handler than even her parents back in the day, who continued to exploit her quirk as she propelled through the rest of her tutor-style schooling to handle crime where the police just couldn't. It would only be after an entire decade passed that it'd be deemed like many of the other self-starting vigilantes in the world at that time, she to would be a relatively risk free addition to the roster of free police.
And so while there would've been evidence of her presence from dozens and dozens of battles, it wasn't until roughly 2060, when she was 25 years old that she'd be in a spotlight. Having stayed as a guard in the containment facility for many years after her official graduation, she kept watch over students and made sure they didn't become a danger to themselves or each other with their quirks. Having been practically geared for battle, her handler putting her through so much of it during her childhood, she was already a monster to reckon with- far superior to greenhorn Quirkers that didn't have a handle on their power.
But when she was free, that was a different feeling. She could be anyone, do anything, and she'd quickly become known as a ruthless vigilante self proclaimed with the name 'Mega' following the calling cards that many of the other Vigilantes had been making at the time. Whether she on some level knew her quirks origins or just thought the idea of 'Megahuman' was cool or not isn't really known, but her reputation never proceeded her. She went through her own story, her own journey of a world of heroes that follow no laws. Her bronze age was a bunch of raving fans on the darkweb collecting images of her crime scenes, villains out cold in craters, hanging off streetlights, pinned to the ground by guardrails- the list went on. It wasn't even really called a bronze age, nobody had become sophisticated enough to really start treating vigilantes that way yet. Instead it was just her beginning, and as she rapidly reached her present state her activity only got more and more insane.
It was a ride she nor her elusive fans couldn't get off of. The thrill of battle, the feeling of coming out on top. The best experience of it all when she thought back was definitely that feeling of rubbing the filth criminals fume back in their faces, making them feel as pathetic as they were. It was that predatory instinct of hers to prey on the weak, but nobody could deny her goalpost for 'weak' was absurd. In her thirties she became less known for creating craters with her victims and more for collapsing buildings on them.
She was getting bigger, a reality of her quirk that'd continue until she died. It wasn't much of a surprise, much to her constant worries that were asking when she'd be unfit to fight rather than if. No matter how much muscle she had, there would be a tipping point where she just couldn't really lead a healthy life. The opinions of underground doctors that reached out after seeing the results were much the same. She might have three decades left at best, and that was in her mid thirties while considering the fact that like sharks, she seemed to be aging slower than normal Humans.
Of course, health scares and a light at the end of the tunnel aside, she still had her self imposed job to do. The crime scenes she left would get more and more brutal each year, as she only got bigger and stronger. It was great for attention, and terrible for her long-term well being. That was when the opportunity swung by that was just what she needed.
It was another time of change. 2071, in more recent memory Mega recalled that'd have made her thirty six at the time. She got a call in the strangest of places- she had no phone and homed up in a literal sewer colony of vigilantes that just crawled out from below to do good. Didn't help that she had to walk so far each way because of being unable to fit through manholes, but it was just one of the many things she did to get that moment of thrill and power over her victims. Most of the rest of her time though was spent eating rations and sleeping- making up for almost sixty percent of a twenty four hour period. So getting a call on a rigged up landline all the way down there from someone claiming to be a suit? It was weird, reminded her of her days with a handler. Neither good nor bad, but she knew how it felt to be sicked on things and not have to worry about the logistics, it was a little comforting.
More importantly were the offers extended. Proper pay, equipment support, police and government cooperation, and opportunities for a proper career out of this stuff. Who could pass that up? After all she never cared about actually doing good, she just liked to fight. Getting that phone call was just a way to do it more, and with less problems in the way. Not to mention some possible solutions to her very peculiar growing problem.
And just like that, four years of drastic change. The support industry was just rising up to support Pro Heroes, something that she now... Was, which was strange for her to consider. The passed four years were something like a new leaf for her. While arguably she'd been declining due to her growth being more of a hindrance than a boon, she has been getting stronger and able to wreak more havoc. She's known for requiring a team of Heroes to mitigate her collateral when she goes all out, and now in the spotlight her previous 'eras' were all tied together and given fitting names.
She also got her now signature suit, the epitome of a humanoid metallic sarcophagus skintight sealing her within. It wasn't like it was a life she wanted to lead, but it meant they might be able to add decades onto her life while technology advanced to find a more permanent solution. In the meantime she had to cut out solid foods and have an operation done to start eating through a tube directly attached to her stomach through the abdominal wall. As part of this whole package, her house was equipped to handle taking off her suit thereby encasing her in a sleeping chamber; a lot of gruesome details that she keeps to herself. Needless to say, her Pro Hero package crossed all her t's and while messy, the suit is capable of adding years to her life.
Which brings her to the current year, now suffering from the effects of career decline because of health. Masuya by this point could only able to go out doing Hero work for a couple hours a day. She was noting a faster rate of growth the older she got, and it was harder for her mind to keep up with her body. So, the only avenue of sustainable income to maintain the support she had was teaching. With her experience as a guard at her facility she was schooled in paired with her connections with her handler, she had a sweet CV whipped up and a great reference.
And in the end she was sitting at her desk, reminiscing on if it was all worth it, and if it only got worse from here.
Could she turn herself around? Defy fate? Only the future would give the answer.
