Kaede Honjo was more or less a typical child. Just like most children, she loved her mom and dad, she had a best friend in the world—though she doubted any of them could compare to Risa—and she always went to school even when she didn't feel like it. She said and did things that never really stood out, and it'd be rather difficult for someone to pick her out of a crowd. If she was being honest, there was only one thing about her that made her different from her peers.

Kaede Honjo didn't feel like being a Hero.

"But it'd be so much fun!" was what Risa Shiramine, her best friend and the best best friend in the world, said the first time Kaede brought it up while they were playing together in. "Just imagine it: bad guys running around causing trouble, everyone's scared out of their minds, and then bam! You make a big entrance and beat them all up, and the crowd just goes wild! 'Yay! Yahoo! We love you, Sally, you're the best!'"

"That does sound like fun, but I still don't know if I want to do that," Kaede said. "I mean, Heroes are always putting themselves in danger, right? They're always going out and getting into fights where they can get really hurt, and that's scary, right? What if someone shoots me in the leg? Or punches me in the face? Or makes me get a splinter? I hate splinters, Risa!"

"Come on, splinters aren't a big deal."

"Tell that to all the infections they give people every year!" Just the thought of it was making Kaede shake like a leaf. Of course, anything that could cause anyone pain did that to her, on account of her traumatophobia. Risa and her parents always liked to tell her that it was psychosomatic, but if that were true, then all the things she read about it wouldn't have sounded so convincing.

"You know you don't have to worry about getting hurt if you just use your Quirk, right?"

"That's easy for you to say, Risa. You've got a Quirk that makes you super fast so no one will touch you, but what if I get a Quirk that doesn't stop people from hitting me?" Risa hummed for a second before patting the top of Kaede's head.

"Well, if that happens, I'll just pick you up and carry you out of trouble. How's that sound?"

"That sounds nice, I guess," Kaede said, smiling partly because of the comment, partly because of the head pats. Having Risa reassure her that everything would be okay was nice to hear, but it still didn't change the fact that the idea of getting hurt even a little made being a Hero sound like a nightmare.

The only way she'd even consider it was if she gained a Quirk that could keep her from getting hurt.

The next morning, Kaede awoke to find a heavy weight on her left side. Usually, the only time something like that ever happened was when Risa slept over and rolled on top of her, so this had to be something else.

"What?" When Kaede looked over to her left, she saw that the apparent something else was her holding onto a metal shield as big as herself, if not a little bigger. It was black as night with blood-red lines running around the front, giving the whole thing a menacing design.

It was very cool to look at.

"I gotta go show Risa!" She didn't know where the shield came from, but she knew that Risa would get a kick out of seeing it. However, upon remembering how heavy the shield was, she decided to leave it at home and just bring Risa over to look at it.

That was the plan, but as soon as she took a step out of her bedroom, the shield vanished in a black light and reappeared in her left hand.

"Huh? What? Why did you—wait, that's it! You're my Quirk! My Quirk is a shield! Yay!" The one thing she wanted was a Quirk that could keep her from getting hurt, and now it was literally in the palm of her hands.

She'd jump for joy if she didn't have so much weight weighing down her tiny body.

Kaede's parents ended up being the first ones to see her Quirk, and the first thing they did after sharing her excitement was to bring her to the doctor for a full analysis. Kaede didn't get why that was necessary, but at the very least, they were going to the best doctor around, so there was nothing to worry about.

"Remarkable, truly remarkable," said her doctor, Kyudai Garaki.

"I know, right? It's a shield! And a really big one!" Kaede said

"Yes, Kaede-kun, and while a Quirk manifesting as an inanimate object is certainly unique, that's not what I was talking about. Mr. and Mrs. Honjo, you both have Quirks that are completely different from this, yes?"

"That's right," said Kaede's father, Matsuda Honjo. "My Quirk lets me create knives out of thin air, and Sugi's lets her fire lasers out of her hands that can bounce off of anything they touch."

"It's so strange that Kaede didn't gain a Quirk resembling either of those," said Kaede's mother, Sugiko. She said that, but Kaede couldn't feel luckier to not have a Quirk that could let someone actually hit her.

"It's strange, yes, but not impossible," Dr. Garaki said. "While most people develop Quirks that are either one of their parents' or a combination of both of them, there are extremely rare cases of a person undergoing a mutation that gives them a Quirk completely removed from their family tree. I believe that Kaede-kun is one such person."

"So I'm super special? Yay!" Kaede said. She jumped out of her chair in celebration, but the weight of her shield made her stumble a bit and bump into Dr. Garaki.

Almost immediately, Dr. Garaki fell down on one knee.

"Oh no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you!"

"Are you all right?" Sugiko asked.

"I'm fine, I'm fine, Kaede-kun barely touched me," Dr. Garaki said. "Kaede-kun barely touched me, yet I'm suddenly out of breath. Could this be—"

"Hey, look!" Matsuda said, pointing at Kaede's shield. A red light shimmered on the surface as a small red jewel appeared out of nowhere. Everyone looked at it with amazement, but Kaede was too busy with all of the new information flowing into her head.

"Dr. Garaki, you're super old!" Kaede said.

"Kaede, don't be rude."

"No, he's super old because he's got a Quirk that makes him live longer, and now I've got it, too!" Dr. Garaki's jaw dropped for reasons Kaede didn't understand.

"What do you mean you have his Quirk?" Sugiko asked.

"When I touched him with my shield, a whole bunch of weird stuff went flying into my head, and now I feel like I can use a bunch of stuff I couldn't use before. Oh, wait!" Kaede walked over and touched her father with her shield. He stumbled back a bit. As he did, another red jewel appeared on Kaede's shield, and with it, new knowledge and power flowed into Kaede. "Knives Out!"

The second jewel shined red. A second later, a butter knife appeared out of thin air and fell at Kaede's feet.

"That's my Quirk! Kaede, your Quirk really does let you copy other Quirks!" Matsuda said.

"I know! It's so cool!" Kaede said.

"It really is—wait, Dr. Garaki, aren't you famously Quirkless?" Sugiko asked.

"Well, that's enough for one day! Kaede-kun seems healthy, but if anything changes, please don't hesitate to call me, okay? Okay! Goodbye!" Dr. Garaki practically shoved them out the door, for some reason. Kaede's parents seemed confused by it, but she didn't care. She was too busy thinking about everything that could be done with her Quirk. All of the possibilities it had in store, all of the advantages it could give her over someone.

Most of all, she thought about all the fighting she could protect herself from.

When the Honjos returned home, the first thing Kaede did was walk next door to Risa's house—she would have run if her shield didn't make her so slow—and tell Risa about her amazing Quirk. Risa was blown away, if not a little confused, and she wasted no time in bringing her to the nearby park so they could work out the specifics of her Quirk. After a few hours of that, they had made a great deal of discoveries.

First, while Kaede could let go of her shield, if she stepped more than a meter and a half away from it, either the shield would automatically reappear on her left arm or she would automatically be sent to where the shield was. Risa thought that there were good combat applications for that, but Kaede was just glad that she always had a means of defending herself.

Second, the shield was indestructible, or at least it was strong enough to not take any damage from the explosion Quirk a kid used on it when they asked him nicely. Not only that, but if the stick that broke against her head was any indication, then some degree of the shield's durability transferred over to Kaede, even when she wasn't holding onto it; fortunately, the decrease in speed from holding such a heavy item didn't persist when the shield was away from her. That went a long way towards helping Kaede with the traumatophobia that she definitely had.

Third, the Quirks she copied would only activate if she said their name aloud. The whole process made her feel like an anime character, and that was a pretty cool feeling to have.

Fourth, and finally, she could only hold onto ten Quirks at once. If she took in any extras, then they would end up in some sort of space in the back of her head she called an "inventory". Kaede couldn't figure out how to switch between Quirks in her shield and Quirks in her inventory, but she was sure that she'd figure it out, eventually.

All in all, her Quirk was truly awesome.

"Use it."

"I don't wanna."

"Please?"

"It's getting late, let's go home."

"Pretty please?" "Pretty" please. It was very hard for Kaede to argue with Risa when she played that card. In fact, it was downright impossible, what with how adorable she always made her eyes look and everything.

"Okay, I'll do it," Kaede said. "Top Gear!" The jewel for Risa's Quirk started shining, and with it, Kaede gained a burst of uncontrollable speed that caused her to run headfirst into a nearby tree.

"You know my Quirk stops working if you get hit, right?" Risa said with a laugh. Kaede groaned as she pulled her head away from the tree and the sizable imprint she had created.

"I told you I didn't want to use it!" Kaede said. "You know I'm not good with running and stuff."

"Yeah, but when was I ever going to see someone else use my own Quirk? Never!"

"I think I'll just focus on making myself as unbreakable as my shield. Being fast enough to dodge attacks is fine, but if I'm too tough to get hurt, then it won't matter if they hit me, right?"

"I guess so. Wait, does this mean you want to be a Hero, now?!"

"Huh?" That was a good question. Getting a Quirk that could keep her from getting hurt was the only condition she set for becoming a Hero, and now it had been met. Then again, she still didn't know all the ins and outs of her Quirk, so for all she knew, it wasn't the perfect defense she hoped it would be.

Before she could contemplate the issue further, a black cloud with large yellow dots appeared in front of Kaede and Risa.

"Hello, Kaede Honjo, my name is Kurogiri." The cloud morphed into a humanoid shape, complete with a sharp suit that did little to diminish the menacing nature of his voice. "I've been told that you've awakened a powerful Quirk, one that my Master would have a great deal of interest in. I'd like for you to come with me, and I'd prefer it if you didn't fight."

Before Kaede could sputter out a response, Risa picked her up in her arms and ran away from the scene at her top speed.

"Help! A Villain's attacking! Help!" Risa shouted. Kaede had never seen her friend appear as anything other than confident and brave, but now she looked like she was ready to faint. That was probably a worse sight than the actual Villain.

"I didn't simply grab you because I didn't want a struggle and I wanted you to think I wouldn't hurt you, but if you're giving me the former, then I don't need to lie about the latter!" A black, cloudy mass appeared in front of Kaede and Risa, but Risa was able to turn away from it just in time to avoid it. More and more shadowy masses appeared in their path, and while Risa was able to dodge, each dodge gradually became closer and closer.

No one's coming to save us, and Risa can't keep going like this! Kaede thought. Okay Kaede, if you were ever going to be a Hero, now's the time!

"Wings!" Kaede said, grabbing Risa tight. One of the jewels on her shield shimmered, and from her back sprouted large, reptilian wings. Kaede flapped with all of her might and took her and Risa into the air. "Top Gear!" Activating Risa's Quirk on top of that, her flight became extremely accelerated.

"Here I thought I was protecting you," Risa said. Kaede couldn't help but smile at that.

"Stubborn brats!" Kurogiri said as he summoned a mass of shadows far larger than the others and sent it at the two of them.

"Release!" Kaede said, deactivating Wings and Top Gear and sending the two of them into a free fall out of the path of the attack. Kaede positioned her shield underneath the two of them and turned it into a makeshift, indestructible cushion that broke their fall.

At the same time, Risa's body started glowing a pale blue light.

"Kaede, my Quirk just jumped up a level! Let's get out of here!" Risa said.

"Yeah!" Risa picked Kaede back up and started heading for the edge of the park. Kurogiri went back to his usual attack pattern, but now that Kaede's Quirk had reached its second level, she was able to dodge them with ease.

The two of them had just about reached the exit when Kurogiri, himself, warped in front of them. His sudden appearance made Risa accidentally skid to a stop and fall over, causing her Quirk to instantly reset.

"I have allowed you two to give me far too much trouble. It ends now!" Kurogiri said.

He's gonna do something really bad, I just know it! Kaede thought. Think Kaede, think! You need to save yourself, but more importantly, you need to save Risa, but how?! None of my Quirks are anything special on their own, and just using them one after another isn't much help! Oh, if only I could mix them all together into some kind of super Quirk!

Wait, why can't I? If she really thought about it, there was no reason why that wasn't possible. The Quirks she was copying were just artificial things living inside of her and her shield, so she should be able to do what she wanted with them. She just needed to focus on it, and with a little bit of luck, it would all pull through for her. It had to.

"Wings plus Explosion equals Nitro Wings!" One of the jewels on Kaede's shield vanished as wings sprouted out of Kaede's back. However, these wings were twice as large as the old ones and made of fire; as such, they were far cooler. Kaede whipped her wings at Kurogiri just as he moved to attack her and Kaede, and his body was engulfed in a massive explosion upon contact. When the smoke cleared, Kurogiri appeared relatively fine, but it still bought Kaede enough time to complete her true objective: touching him with her shield.

"What the?!" Kurogiri fell down on one knee as Kaede successfully copied his Quirk.

"Go get him, Kaede!" Risa said, finally standing back up.

"Okay, um, oh! Top Gear plus Knives Out plus Warp equals High-Speed Portal Cutter!" Two jewels disappeared, and Kaede fired a series of black lasers from her right hand. They hit random spots in the park and the air before flattening out into large, dark circles. "Risa, tackle him!"

"Right!" Risa activated her Quirk and charged at the still-stunned Kurogiri with presumably all of her might and knocked him into the closest circle. He was instantly sucked into it only to fly out of another one like a bullet out of a gun right into another portal. Then another, and another, and another, and it kept going until there was nothing but a black blue flying through the air.

Eventually, a spot of green was added to it.

"Hahahaha! Behold the power of Devour! I am Kaede Honjo, the super awesome girl! Look on my Quirks, you meany, and despair!" Kaede said, laughing at the top of her lungs.

"You did it, Kaede! You did it!" Risa said, bringing Kaede into a hug. "So, um, how long does this last for?"

"I don't know." She honestly had no idea how long it would last, and it wasn't like she could just deactivate it and give Kurogiri a chance to attack again.

In the middle of all of that, a large, octagonal object flew through the air and hit Kurogiri, knocking him out of the air and onto the ground in a pile of his own vomit.

"Little girls, are you all right?! I'm so sorry it took even more than ten seconds to respond to that distress call! Please forgive me!" There was a person on the scene, a muscular man with a Domino mask, a hooded cape, and stone-like material coming out of his hands. Kaede immediately recognized him as the Shield Hero: Crust, one of the top-ranked Heroes in the country and her personal idol.

"This is the best day ever!" Aside from the attempted kidnapping, it truly was.

As Kurogiri was hauled off by the police, Kaede overheard the situation from Crust and the police. It turned out that Dr. Garaki was a bad guy who lied about being Quirkless to hide his true identity as an evil scientist who liked to experiment on people. When Kaede exposed him as a Quirk user, he knew it was only a matter of time before people started looking into him, so he needed to run away and start over under a new name, but before all that, he wanted his friend Kurogiri to kidnap Kaede so he could experiment on her for nefarious purposes. Dr. Garaki vanished anyway, but either way, Kaede managed to foil an actual, evil, villainous plot.

It made her feel all wiggly.

"You two did a great job, today! Not many kids your age could stay strong in the face of such adversity, so you two must possess truly tremendous spirit!" Crust said.

"Well, I don't know about me, but Kaede was the one who did all the hard stuff," Risa said.

"I don't know about that, but your friend certainly does have remarkable talent!"

"Y-You think so? Dhank hyu!" Kaede said. Talking to her idol made her so nervous that she bit her tongue, but that did little to deter her.

"Haha! How precious! I need to speak with the police now, but feel free to come to my agency in ten years or so. I'd love to have you!" Crust patted Kaede on the back and headed over to the police, leaving before he got a chance to see the stars in her eyes.

"Did you see that, Risa? I already got a job offer!" Kaede said.

"So does this mean you want to be a Hero?" Risa asked.

"Yeah! I'm already good at it, and now I know that the best way to stop Quirks from hurting me is to just get all the Quirks I can! No one can hurt me with their Quirks if I have all the Quirks!"

"That's the spirit! And me? I'm gonna become so fast that no one will ever get to touch me. We'll be the most invincible Heroes in the world!"

"Yeah!" Kaede wrapped Risa up in a celebratory hug. As she did, she accidentally touched her with her shield and made her fall on her back in exhaustion.

She'd have to work on making that not happen.

Name: Kaede Honjo

Quirk: Devour

*Creates an indestructible shield that attaches itself to her left hand. If Kaede is ever more than a meter than a half away from her shield, either the shield will be teleported to her hand or she'll be teleported to the shield.

*Holding the shield causes Kaede's natural defense to increase and make certain attacks painless.

*If the shield makes contact with a Quirk user, their energy will be drained and Kaede will obtain a copy of their Quirk, along with complete knowledge of how it works. Once she has copied ten Quirks, all new Quirks are sent into an inaccessible "inventory".

*Copied Quirks can only be activated by saying their name out loud. In addition, Kaede can combine her Quirks into new ones. Quirks used for this are immediately erased and have to be copied again to be usable.

*Kaede's Active Quirks:

**Longevity(Kyudai Garaki)

**Bouncy Laser(Sugiko Honjo)

**Stretchy Fingers(Friend of pomeranian boy)

**Puffy Cheeks(Random kid)

**Rock Fist(Random kid)

**Hair Extension(Random kid

**Nitro Wings

**High-Speed Portal Cutter

**Shield(Crust)

**Top Gear(Risa Shiramine)

*Quirks in Inventory:

**Long Neck(Random kid)

**Muscle Growth(Random kid)

**Glamour(Random kid)

**Earphone Jack(Random kid)

*Discarded Quirks:

**Explosion(Pomeranian boy)

**Wings(Friend of pomeranian boy)

**Knives Out(Matsuda Honjo)

**Warp(Kurogiri)

***Updates on all information pending.

Name: Risa Shiramine

Quirk: Top Gear

*Gives Risa a boost in strength and speed upon activation.

*The boost will continually increase after certain intervals of time, but will automatically reset if Risa takes physical damage.

**Updates on all information pending.

You know all those stories where Midoriya ends up with All for One for one reason or another? Well, this is going to be like those, but better.