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Gambler Chapter 15: Quirked Up
🕑 Added 2025-08-21 15:32:11 +0000 UTCThe Gambler's Guide to Heroism
Chapter 15: Quirked Up
~Hakari Kotaro~
After parting with Momo, who was picked up by her private driver, I headed home with a pep in my step. Not only did I get a very good healing ability, but I finally managed to come up with a name for my "Quirk", which I had been struggling with for the longest time.
When I got back home, Toga decided to make up the lost time very thoroughly.
...I lost a lotta blood. Not that I blamed her, I was more than happy to
feed her quirky fixation after all.
But it did help me discover something. Lesser Cure wounds couldn't recover lost blood or limbs. Probably because its rank was too low. Thankfully, Hypno's Sleeping Mask accelerated recovery took care of the issue overnight.
If it weren't for that thing, I probably would have had a much worse time getting into UA.
Speaking of, after spending time working out and satisfying Toga's ravenous appetite for both the fluid in my veins and the fluid in my nethers I had quickly fallen asleep from exhaustion along with Toga.
Not physical exhaustion, of course, but more with my energy reserves. Unlike quirks, which just regularly exhausted their users like muscles, mine seemed to pull from some sort of nebulous energy source inside my being.
If I overuse it, I start feeling lethargic and exhausted regardless of the condition of my body, and if I keep pushing past that, I start bleeding, like trying to wring water out of a dry sponge.
But nothing some rest didn't fix. Especially thanks to Hypnos, the homie.
⚀—⚁⚂⚃—⚄—•⚅•—⚄—⚃⚂⚁—⚀
~Hakari Kotaro~
Classes had actually started at UA, and it was... more different than I expected. First of all, all teachers were Pro Heroes. All of them, without fail. Well, for the Hero course at least. And they clearly were not teachers foremost.
I may not have pulled any teaching skills from the gacha, but I had gone to high school before, and I was familiar with Japanese teachers. While Present Mic was trying his best with English and wasn't actually that bad compared to some teachers I had, it was quite clear he was not very experienced with this whole business.
I had doubts as to the logistics of this whole operation, but I'm not known for my intelligence nor my decision-making abilities.
After the first day, the class quickly started splitting off into subgroups, too, with some exceptions. Toga, Mina, and Toru seemed to be the cheerful gyaru group type, which, for some reason, also seemed to include Kirishima, who also hung out around me quite a lot.
"So you're Toga-chan's boyfriend, huh? I can certainly see the appeal~."
Mina was a bit of a teaser type; she acted somewhere between a gyaru and a cheery girl. She got along with Toga like chocolate and peanut butter.
"Hehe~ I know, right? He is the best and he has a massi- uwah!"
I shut Toga up from saying some nonsense by flicking some toffee consistency candy into her mouth. Surprising both Mina and Toru as Toga silently chewed the candy with an aggrieved expression.
"Whoa! What was that, Hakari-kun?"
Toru put her hands on the table and leaned forward and so did Mina in curiosity as I created some more candy syrup flowing between my fingers.
"This? This is Candy, my other quirk, it allows me to create and manipulate candy."
That got an exclamation of surprise from Mina.
"Wait, you really do have multiple quirks? That's kinda freaky. How does that even work?"
"Yeah! I thought your quirk was just very varied or something."
I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair as I faced the questions of the two girls, while Toga watched in amusement while chewing on her candy.
"What can I say? I'm a man of many talents. I'd explain how my quirk works, but it would take too long. So what would you prefer? That I spend the whole recess explaining my quirk, or would you prefer if I gave you guys some candy?"
I created appetising-looking pink candy and saw Mina look at the syrup nearly dripping from my fingers(nearly because I was not cleaning all that up.), and I assumed Tooru was also at my candy as well, although it was quite hard to tell with her being invisible and all, I just assumed due to her body language.
They exchanged a look.
"...Well, we will learn about it anyway, right? Gimme!"
"I agree with Mina-chan."
It brought a small smile to my lips as I conjured some candy balls and handed them over to the girls. The candies were pretty dense and would last in their mouths for about an hour.
It was a bit concerning how willing they were to just put candy coming out of a man's hands in their mouths.
"Mmm, it's quite good, Hakari-kun!"
"Yeah, I like it! It's a nice quirk."
As the girls talked about the dubious candy coming out of my body, Aizawa entered the room, immediately silencing everyone despite it being recess. Without waiting a moment, he pointed me out.
"Hakari, the principal expects you in his office. Hurry it up."
With that, Aizawa left as quickly as he entered, but the attention was still on me, which made me sigh.
"What's up with that Hakari-kun?"
"Yeah, is there a problem?"
Mina asked curiously while Toga asked with a rather ominous edge to her voice, making me raise my arms.
"Everythin's fine. Just need to get my quirk registration sorted. I'll be back by the end of the next class, probably."
I got up from my seat, dusted myself off and opened the window.
"Well then, see ya'll later."
I jumped out of the window without waiting to hear a response. Instead of falling out, I appeared jumping out of the door to the men's bathroom on the same floor as the principal's office.
Man, I will never get tired of Door Crossing.
Walking over to the principal's office, I knocked on the door and got a quick response: a weird voice that sounded like a small man trying to sound cutesy told me to come in, and I did.
"Hello there Hakari-kun! I'm your principcal Nezu! Am I a bear? A mouse? Who knows!"
I admit, even if I expected it, I still got blindsided by the principle being a midget sized humanoid rat standing behind his desk and looking very plushie-like. And that scar on his face looked pretty goddamn gnarly.
⚀—⚁⚂⚃—⚄—•⚅•—⚄—⚃⚂⚁—⚀
~Nezu~
Nezu scanned his student who entered the room, he didn't look that out of the ordinary to his eyes, he was tall and lean with medium-long unruly dirty blonde hair with piercing yellow eyes. His body language told him that despite feeling somewhat nervous due to meeting him, Hakari did not seem to be afraid of being busted for anything.
Nezu had a lot of experience dealing with All for One's agents.
"Principal Nezu, you called me about my quirk?"
His gaze briefly wandered over to All Might, right now in his "Mr. Yagi" from sitting on the corner of the room, but he averted his gaze, now looking at the ground. Perhaps a nervous response?
"Indeed Hakari-kun! I couldn't help but notice how out of the ordinary your quirk was, but then again, they are called quirks, right? Mind explaining to me how your quirk works so that I can change your official registry, Hakari-kun?"
He noticed Yagi tense, in the event that the confrontation turned hostile, All Might was in the room, but Nezu hoped with all his heart that it did not turn out that way. He wanted to trust his students and for his students to be able to trust him.
Nezu, out of all people, knew the value of trust very well.
Noticing Hakari hesitated to speak and look at the ground instead, Nezu softened his voice but still spoke firmly. At least he was not tense and only seemed to hesitate.
"Hakari-kun, we at UA only have your best interests. No matter what answer you give, you will still be my student, and I will still be responsible for you. So don't be nervous."
There were so many possible things Hakari could be, and Nezu did not want to exclude any possibilities. Nezu had not been given any reason to distrust Hakari other than his odd quirk, and while he was cautious because of that, he refused to let his paranoia baselessly accuse his students.
Hakari seemed to come to a decision as he lifted his eyes from the floor.
"Sensei, do you know Gachapon machines?"
"Gachapon?"
Nezu furrowed his brows. He had used some gachapon machines out of interest, but they quickly became boring once he started calculating their values.
"Yes, I am aware."
"Then that will make this easier to explain. My ability is kind of like a Gachapon machine. Except instead of giving trinkets and stuff, it gives me abilities, knowledge, items and even changes to my body. I can only use two abilities at a time right now, and some of the perks I got grant inhuman stamina, as you have seen. I... think you can get the gist of why I didn't rush to get it registered."
Nezu sat in silence and cradled his chin in contemplation. He sensed no intent to deceive in Hakari's words. And his quirk lined up pretty well with the explanation he gave. It was a strong quirk, no that did not begin to cover it, considering how little time Hakari had it, yet he scored first place in his exam.
It was certainly an implausible quirk, but definitely not impossible if Stars and Stripes and Manga-kun were any indication. And there was the Russian hero Lotto, who had a gambling quirk, so it was not out of the realm of possibility.
And Nezu was also grateful, if not a bit disturbed, about the caution his student showed the government. If he had had his quirk registered, he probably would have been inaugurated the same way Lady Nagant was.
He saw Yagi flinch and understood it well; it was an ability eerily similar to that of All for One
"Well, that is certainly a powerful quirk, Hakari-kun. Could you give us some examples so that we can understand it better? And is there any limits to your ability?"
He nodded and Nezu watched as syrup seemed to drip out of his skin like molten candy.
"My ability seems to go off of something like achievements. The more impressive or meaningful something I accomplish is, the more chance I have of getting something good. I got this ability, Candy Manipulation from scoring first in the exam. It allows me to create and manipulate candy constructs."
The candy seemed to vanish without any sign of it ever being there as Nezu fell into thought.
"I can only use 2 of my abilities at a time, but that seems to increase over time. As I have said, I also have inhuman stamina and I got this bag from finishing top 10 in the written exam. Its actual size inside of it is around a kilometer square and I can retrieve things out of it as I want."
Nezu watched with his beady eye as Hakari reached into a golden bag and pulled out a chair like a clown getting out of a clown car.
"That is..."
Nezu genuienly felt lost for words at the moment, which was something he rarely was.
"Whacky, right? I don't know how it works either. Also, if you are going to register my quirk, I named it All in One."
"URKH!!!"
He directed a concerned gaze towards his student as he keeled over on his chair upon hearing the name of the quirk, and Nezu shared the sentiment. It was... kind of ominous that Hakari would have such a powerful quirk and pick a name so in line with All Might's nemesis.
But again, it was Nezu's job to ensure that Hakari did not fall to villany.
Seemingly taking their silence as some sort of judgement Hakari continued.
"Get it? All in One as in everything in one quirk, and it's a put with All in cause my quirk has a gacha element."
Thankfully, that did somewhat help lift the morose mood as Nezu chuckled and Yagi tried to get his heart to beat again.
"Alright Hakari-kun, I'll make sure to take note of that. Now you better hurry up to not miss your next class, young man!"
Seeing Hakari assent and nod curtly before leaving Nezu sighed, feeling the warnings of an incoming headache.
A/N: Hakari does a little trolling; he likes to mess with people and door crossing is very conducive to messing with people. I love writing him. And his relationships in the class are slowly but steadily developing. Hope you guys like the class interactions to flesh out his relationships.
Coming is a good idea, and a definitely good idea when the voices in your head written on the ground are telling you its a good idea. Hakari may distrust autority but when the show and even his ability is saying to trust Nezu, he has no reason not to.
Comments
Son-Of-Scorn
Just confused this with the previous story and now desperately hoping I've not made a twat out of myself lol, either way itd be nice if this was in collections so other morons like me don't mix them up
Uudles
Great Chapter, as usual! By the way… there is a member of Class A called ‘Sato’ I believe. And his quirk allows him to become stronger the more Sugar/Candy he eats. I believe he could prove to be a useful teammate for Hakari.
