Work Text:
“Good morning Ojirio!”
“Morning…” The small, blond boy mumbled back slouching into the large wooden chair in front of the Quirk Counselor’s desk.
“My name is Kokoro Benjiro and I am here today to do my best to help you with whatever you need.” The old man smiled back with laugh lines wrinkling at the corners of his smile.
Mashirao looked back with a frown, “What’s the point of this? I already know what my quirk is. It’s a tail.”
He waved back towards the spaghetti-thin tail with a tuft of blond hair at the end draped over the back of his chair.
Benjiro nodded his head, “Yes, but unlike what you think, I’m not just a Quirk Counselor here to help you identify your quirk. I’m here to help students learn three very, very important life lessons.”
“One, quirks are not the be-all and end-all of everything in society. Two, you don’t need to define yourself by your quirk. Three, there is no such thing as a useless quirk.” Benjiro ended with a firm look at Mashirao.
“Huh? What do you mean that there’s no such thing as a useless quirk? And what was that about defining myself?” Mashirao tilted his head in confusion.
“Let’s leave that aside for now, and focus on what’s going on with you right now.”
Mashirao subconsciously withdrew in on himself, “I don’t know. It’s nothing to talk about.”
“Is it because you think I might judge you, or that it might reflect on you poorly?”
“I don’t know, yes maybe?” Mashirao looked down and away from Benjiro’s light brown eyes.
Benjiro responded while keeping his body language open and relaxed, “Let me clarify that I do care about your well being, and do want you to do well, and if there’s anything I can do after hearing what’s going on with you I will. Is that okay?”
“Yeah sure, thanks.”
“What’s going on?”
Mashirao shrugged, “Some kids were being rude, so I told them to back off and they tried to get me in trouble by lying to the teacher about me making a mess in art class when it was them who did it. Don’t you already know this?”
“I do, but I’m not focusing on what anyone did, but on how you are feeling and doing.” Benjiro looked on calmly keeping his hands spread apart on his desk.
Mashirao is silent and looking down at his sneakers.
“They’ve been bothering you about your quirk for a while now, haven’t they?” He spoke quietly.
Mashirao scowled and didn’t respond.
“This ties back to what I wanted to say earlier about quirks not being everything that matters. Tell me something about you that you are most proud of.”
Mashirao silently looks up at Benjiro for a long while.
“Weeeelllll…there’s the basketball team. I’m the best at getting the ball and setting up my teammates to make a shot.”
“Good for you! Is your quirk very involved in your success?”
Mashirao shook his head quickly, “No not at all, in fact I usually have to tie it around my waist like a belt to keep it out of the way.”
“You see? There is something that you can do which isn’t dependent on your quirk.”
Mashirao opened his mouth and closed it.
Benjiro spoke, “If all people depended on nothing but their quirks, then it would be a sorry world that we lived in. We have done incredible things before there were quirks, and we will continue to do incredible things with or without quirks.”
"I will always remember the incredible experience of watching the Moon landing on July 20th, 1969. I thought to myself, humans can do incredible things can’t they?” Benjiro sighs in satisfaction as he is lost in thoughts of the past.
Mashirao squinted at him looking somewhat impatient.
Benjiro chuckled, “Enough reminiscing about ancient history. Let me ask you, what do you want to do? What is your dream, nay ambition in life?”
Mashirao looks around the room as if uncertain about what he wants to say and faces back with a look of determination on his face, “I want to be a pro-hero like All Might.”
Benjiro doesn’t react in any way other than keeping a smile on his face, “Good for you! Do you have any plans on how you will achieve that wonderful dream?”
Mashirao sagged, “Not really, my quirk’s useless and I can’t become a hero without a strong quirk.”
Benjiro raises his hand as if to stop Mashirao’s negative emotions in their tracks, “Now, now, I don’t think being a pro is the be-all and end-all of being a hero. You can go into the medical field or the police force and still save just as many lives as the pro heroes do.”
“Anyway, I think you are wrong about your quirk being useless. There is no such thing as a useless quirk, just a poorly utilized quirk.”
Mashirao rolled his eyes, “Sure thing, tell me what’s so amazing about my quirk.”
Benjiro chuckled, “Now, now, there’s no need for any sass in this office. I get enough from my co-workers. Anyway, quirks can be versatile, but they have applications that are more suitable than others. Instead of talking about your quirk, let’s play a game.”
Mashirao leaned forward in curiosity, “A game, sir?”
“Yes, you can come up with a quirk that seems as useless as possible, and I will attempt to answer with something that someone could use the quirk for. However, you must only use a quirk that you know someone has. No making up quirks that don’t exist.”
“Okay then, how about talking to fruit. I have a classmate who talks to her apple tree at home.”
”Oh wow, she has a productive career ahead of her in farming. She can find out why a tree is sick or know how they feel about different fertilizers.”
“Uh, yeah that works. Um…oh, Yuto! He can turn invisible, but only when it’s kinda shadowy and dim. If it’s bright, then his quirk doesn’t activate at all.”
“Oh boy…he would be a difficult criminal to catch if he goes about robbing people at night. No camera would ever catch him.”
“Okay…But there’s someone who I really don’t think you’ll be able to answer. Haruto, he has trash detection.”
“Oh I see him sometimes. He’s actually been using his quirk to be better at cleaning up the classrooms than anyone else and is planning on becoming a detective by using it.”
“Wait, what?! How can his quirk be used for that?”
“Detectives and the police often look for any garbage that criminals throw out since trash can reveal a lot about a person. Receipts tell what you’ve bought recently, thieves throw out things like empty wallets that they’ve stolen, and evidence can be found buried in a backyard.”
Benjiro tapped his chin for a moment in thought, “This also disregards the fact that quirks can grow like a muscle. I wonder if Haruto’s quirk can develop to the point where he can detect people which he considers to be morally trash.”
Mashirao startled, “Quirks can change like that?”
“Yes, everyone acts as if the quirk you are born with is set, but quirks grow and develop just like any other part of your body. Even more so in your case where your quirk is literally a body part.” Benjiro responded with enthusiasm.
“You are part of a sports team. You must have seen how your arms and legs got bigger and stronger as you exercised. Have you ever thought about training your tail by using it to curl weights or carrying some of your school supplies?”
Mashirao tilted his head, “I can’t move my tail, it’s a tail.”
“Have you not heard of prehensile tails? Actually, have you ever tried to move your tail around by itself?”
Mashirao blinked in surprise, “I…no, I never tried to do that…”
Benjiro pointed to his ears as they began to wiggle slightly back and forth, “I thought the same thing about my ears when I was younger!”
“If you could strengthen your tail and use it grab on to things, you could be amazing at parkour, wrestling, martial arts, or any individual sports and some team sports.”
Mashirao’s mouth gapes slightly open at the thought.
“I can recommend you to some martial arts programs to teach you how to fight and first aid courses.”
“First aid?” Mashirao’s face twisted in confusion.
“Of course! Remember what I just said about not being dependent on your quirk? Every hero should know how to treat people who are injured and I’m sorry to say this, but no matter how strong your tail is, I doubt that it will grow a brain and tell you what to do.”
“Heh, heh, hahahaha!” Mashirao laughed at the admittedly lame joke.
Benjiro glanced at the clock and raised his eyebrows, “Will you look at that! Where did all of the time go? Let me give you some papers on some martial arts classes you can sign up for if you want and you can go back to class.”
Mashirao jumped down, “Thanks, I’ll try to see if I can move my tail without touching it tonight.”
“Don’t worry too much if it doesn’t happen right away. It took me a few weeks before my ears could move at all.”
“Always keep what I said in mind, quirks aren’t everything for society or you, and every quirk has their use no matter what it is.”
Benjiro smiled as Mashirao ran out of his office with a look of eagerness on his face.
Years pass
Benjiro picked up a stack of mail from his mail slot.
“Bill, ad, bill, ad, check, bill,…a letter! Says it’s from…Mashirao. Who was that?”
He opened the letter with a look of confusion, “Hmmm, it’s a picture of…kids? Oh! They are standing in front of UA High School. Do I know any of them?”
He looks closely at the picture of smiling teenagers standing in front of the entrance to UA and wearing UA uniforms. His eyes stops on a tall muscular blond with a very thick and muscular tail waving behind him.
“Mashirao! Now I remember him and I can’t believe how much he has changed.”
He looks to the short letter that came with the picture.
Dear Kokoro Benjiro,
I wanted to thank you for your help all of those years ago.
If you hadn’t helped me realize that there was more to my quirk than just being a tail and more to being a hero than quirks, I don’t think I would be where I am now.
The picture is showing all of my new classmates and friends from 1A in UA.
Thanks for being so encouraging and helpful.
Sincerely,
Ojiro Mashirao
Future Pro Hero