Fukumaki Watabe started working at Shizuoka Orphanage a little over thirty years ago. Her quirk, Comfort, was well suited to helping young minds deal with life in the orphanage. Her quirk, as its name would suggest, allowed her to provide mild feelings of relaxation and drowsiness upon contact with someone. Her quirk was not quite suited to the medical field, though it did help some patients suffering from medical anxiety. She found better use in using her quirk to soothe young children who often had nightmares and trauma. Her quirk couldn't do much, but helping a child get a restful night's sleep for the first time in months or better process their emotions could provide support in their darkest times.
Naturally, she was saddened to see the state of many children living in the orphanage, who despite her quirk's intervention and many sessions of counseling, would still mope about with burdens heavier than any child should carry.
One such child was Julian Ryukazi, he was a bit of an extreme example but that only made her worry deepen. The state the boy had been in was a textbook trauma response, and usually, children would at least attempt to open up to their peers or others around them after a few months in the orphanage's support system (A/N: I don't think that's how it works irl so lets just say its anime logic). She knew he would have a harder time than some of the others, quirkless children were always like that. They often had feelings of uselessness and inferiority on top of whatever problems they were dealing with and had no neat little tricks to distract them. The counselors would try to address it as best they could, but when quirkless children were so often openly discriminated against or bullied it made their efforts all but useless.
Not only was she surprised to hear Julian had awakened a quirk, but she was excited and prayed that the spark of joy within him would help him break out of his shell. So she had no choice but to ask the boy to show off a little and help him find the joy of first discovering his quirk that quirkless children didn't get.
The easy smile on her face widened to match the beaming grin on the face of the young boy before her "That's amazing Julian!" She said with only a slightly exaggerated sense of wonder, though a fair bit of it was truthful, as awakening a quirk at his age was incredibly rare. "So then" she started, etching the gleaming of the boy's eyes in her mind "what's your quirk?" she asked.
Despite his time as a young adult and his rough childhood in this life, Julian was still a child in body, and half his mind was that of a child, so when provided with the chance to talk about the dream he had in both lives coming true he was giddy and shaking like an excited puppy.
"MyquirkisflyingandI'msuperstrongandI'mreallyfastandI-" Julian rattled off a bunch of his abilities in a quick breath, most of it too quick for the Matron to understand. She waited patiently for him to describe each of his abilities in detail, throwing a few punches in the demonstration. Though the smile did not fade from her face, doubt started creeping in. Dozens of quirks? Awakening at twelve? It was... a miracle at best, and the lack of demonstration did not help her sinking terrible suspicion that Julian may have been delusional or worse, on drugs. Yet she would not spoil the child's fun, not when she had grown so used to seeing him depressed.
"I'm glad to hear that" she said putting a hand on the boy's shoulder in case he didn't react well to the next part of what she had to say "And how does getting your quirk make you feel?" she lightly asked.
Julian tensed and had to resist an eye-roll at the stereotypical therapist question. After a moment of internal debate, he decided that he needed to talk about his emotions. The sooner the better, bottling up stress and anxiety would not prove good in the long run.
Julian muttered intelligible ramblings under his breath as he gently guided the Matron to one of the benches in front of the orphanage. "Honestly, getting my powers really stresses me out-" Julian almost smacked himself for using the wrong terminology, noting a hint of confusion from the matron. "I mean my quirk, sorry." Julian corrected as he lowered his head, stopping just short of flinching on instinct. "Anways, my quirk kinda stresses me out, I mean here I am with all this power- " a strong gust of wind following a casual flick of his finger that was too fast for the matron to see emphasizing his point "- but I'm not sure how to use it. I mean, I want to be a hero, help people, make sure nobody suffers as I did. But what if it's too much? What if I'm not strong enough, emotionally speaking of course." he added, his grin returning in full as he looked back up. Ignoring the Matron's poorly hidden shock he continued with his rant.
"I mean, should I even wait? What if I see someone who needs help right now? I'm stronger and faster than most heroes could dream of. I just- I-I don't, I don't know if it's better to do nothing with all this time. The heroes of old never waited for something like a license, so why should I? I don't want to let that hold me back when I could be saving lives right now!" He raised his voice for a moment, but just as quickly as he did so it fell again.
"I just can't stand by and let people suffer" he continued, his voice becoming even. "How can I look myself in the mirror every morning knowing I could be saving lives, rescuing people, helping others!" He nearly shouted as his voice once more grew in volume and emotion. "-but then that poses the question, if I don't follow the rules, take the law in my own hands, free myself from its rules, and do as I please, what am I then? Can I call myself a hero if I don't follow protocol, potentially putting more people in danger? I mean the hero license exists for a reason it's not just to make celebrities. It's to ensure a hero is ethical and knows what to do in each type of emergency, to ensure they know how to control their powers and use them effectively!" He exclaimed, before his voice evened "What if I can't control my powers? What if I can't control myself?"
To say Fukumaki was stunned would be the understatement of the century. The boy's quick switch into sounding like a grown man was... jarring. Then the casual display of such raw strength she had never seen before. Truthfully she had her mouth open like a fish by the time Julian started pondering quirk ethics like an old man. However, the lost expression on his face shook her from her stupor as she pondered what to say. Her next words would have a big impact, and being so shallow as to dismiss his rant in favor of warning him against vigilantism seemed... counterintuitive.
A thought appeared in her head, and the words fell into place in her mind.
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A/N: AHHH I was so stuck between exploring more talky-talky and some action, but I figured with the beginning chapters I could put off a real fight for later. I find that kinda ironic I was most excited to write the fight scenes but I have yet to do so. I think that this chapter (and the next one) are important to further establish Julian's character and outlook. Plan was to make it start this chapter but I got invested in their conversation. Idk if i mentioned it but I started this mainly to improve on my writing skills, especially inter-personal interactions. lmk what you think about their discussion. How does it make you feel?