The world is a stage, but most people are born without a script.
For Loki Hargreaves, the play began in a sterile doctor's office at the age of four. His father, Arthur, sat on a cheap plastic chair, his hands—calloused from his job as a mid-level logistics manager—clutching Loki's small hand. His mother, Elena, was there too, her face pale but her smile as bright as the sun.
"The X-ray shows the extra toe joint is missing," the doctor said, pointing to a grainy image. "He has a Quirk. The genetic markers suggest a manipulation-type ability."
Loki's heart had soared. He looked at his palms, expecting fire, or ice, or the strength to lift a car.
"Try it, Loki," his mother whispered. "Focus."
Loki closed his eyes. He imagined a flower—a simple red rose for his mother. He felt a hum in his chest, a strange, electric green warmth that flowed down his arms.
Poof.
A flurry of green sparks danced in the air. For a fleeting second, a rose appeared. It was beautiful, shimmering with an ethereal light. Elena gasped, reaching out to touch it. But as soon as her fingers brushed the petals, they dissolved into green mist. The scent of ozone and expensive cologne lingered for a heartbeat, then vanished.
The doctor sighed, scribbling on a clipboard. "Quirk Name: GrandIllusion It's a sensory hallucination quirk, Arthur. It has no physical mass. It's... well, it's a parlor trick. Good for parties, perhaps."
The word "useless" wasn't spoken, but it hung in the air like a thick fog.
The realization didn't come with a flash of light or a heroic roar. and a devastating sense of disappointment.
The years that followed were a lesson in practicality. Loki grew up in a comfortable, upper-middle-class home—a world of bookshelves, piano lessons, and quiet dinners. But outside those walls, the world was cruel.
At school, the children were vultures.
"Hey, Loki! Make me a burger!" a boy shouted, shoving him in the dirt.
Loki, seven years old and already wearing his signature nonchalant mask, snapped his fingers. A juicy, steaming burger appeared in the boy's hand. The boy tried to bite it, only for his teeth to clack together on empty air.
"It's a lie! Just like you!" the boy yelled.
"You're basically quirkless, Hargreaves! You're just a flashlight with a fancy name!"
Loki didn't cry. He simply stood up, dusted off his trousers, and walked away. He had learned early on that reactions were what they wanted. If he gave them nothing, he remained the director of his own life.
But the real tragedy struck when he was nine.
His mother, Elena, had always been frail, a side effect of her own minor light-based quirk that slowly drained her vitality. She passed away on a rainy Tuesday, leaving a hole in the Hargreaves household that no illusion could fill.
Loki stood at her funeral, snapping his fingers repeatedly. He tried to create a version of her that wouldn't disappear. He poured every ounce of that green mana into the air, imagining her smile, her warmth. But the "Weight of the Lie" wasn't there yet. The illusions flickered and died. He was alone.
Loki's father threw himself into work to provide for Loki and his younger sister, Lyra. Because of their father's success, Loki was often invited to social gatherings for the "rising elite." It was at one of these garden parties that he met Momo Yaoyorozu.
The Incident at the Yaoyorozu Estate
The garden was a sea of white linens and pretentious laughter. A group of children, all heirs to various corporate fortunes, had gathered near the koi pond. At the center was Momo Yaoyorozu, looking stiff in a dress that cost more than Loki's father made in a month.
Before they turned on her, they needed a
warm-up act. They chose Loki.
"Look at him," sneered a boy named Daiki, whose quirk allowed him to harden his fingernails into claws. "Hargreaves is just standing there like he's part of the furniture.
Hey, Illusionist! Show us a trick. Make yourself disappear so we don't have to look at your cheap suit."
Loki didn't look up from his glass of sparkling cider. "I could make myself disappear, Daiki, but then who would be here to remind you that your tie is crooked? It's a tragedy, really."
Daiki's face flushed. "You little—!"
He stepped forward, but his eyes shifted to Momo, who was standing nearby with a look of quiet discomfort. Daiki decided to pivot to a bigger target.
"And you, Yaoyorozu. 'The Creation Prodigy.' You think you're so special because you can make stuff? You're just a walking 3D printer. Without your family's money to buy the materials you study, you'd be as useless as the Ghost Boy here."
The other kids joined in. "Yeah, she's just a show-off. She thinks she's better than us because she studies all day. Why don't you 'create' a personality, Momo?"
Momo flinched. She was a brilliant girl, but at ten years old, she lacked the calloused skin Loki had spent years developing. Her lip trembled. She looked down at her hands, her confidence crumbling under the weight of their jealousy.
Daiki reached out to shove her. "Answer us! Or are you too 'elite' to speak?"
"That's enough," Loki said. His voice wasn't loud, but it had the cold, sharp edge of a guillotine blade.
"Get out of the way, Hargreaves!" Daiki hissed, trying to pull his hand back. "This doesn't involve you."
"Actually, it does," Loki replied, his expression one of pure, nonchalant boredom. "You're making a scene, and frankly, it's a boring one. Bullying a girl because she's more talented than you is the most cliché script I've ever seen. It's beneath me to even watch it."
"You think you're tough without your light show?" Daiki snarled. He swung his other hand—claws extended.
Loki didn't use his quirk. He used his eyes. He watched the shoulder, the pivot of the hip—practical physics. He stepped inside the arc of the swing, tripped Daiki's lead foot with a simple heel-hook, and redirected the boy's momentum.
Daiki went face-first into the manicured grass.
The silence that followed was absolute. Loki didn't gloat. He didn't even look at the fallen boy. He turned to Momo, who was staring at him in shock.
"Your posture is failing, Yaoyorozu," Loki said, adjusting his own cuffs as if nothing had happened. "If you let people like that see you flinch, you're giving them the lead role in your life. Don't be an extra in your own story."
He turned and walked away before she could say thank you, leaving the "elite" children staring at his back. He didn't need a quirk to be a hero; he just needed to refuse to follow a bad script.
Loki Hargreaves was ten years old when he sat on the floor of his living room, staring intensely at his open palm. Around him, the world was obsessed with "flashy." His classmates were manifesting the ability to breathe fire, turn their skin into rock, or jump twenty feet in the air. Loki? Loki made green mist.
"Again, Loki! Do the trick again!"
His younger sister, Lyra, barely four years old, sat across from him with her chin resting on her tiny hands. To her, Loki was already the greatest hero in existence.
Loki exhaled, focusing on the warmth in his chest. He reached into the air—the "empty" air—and pulled. With a soft hiss of green mana, a dull gold five-yen coin appeared between his fingers.
"Wow!" Lyra gasped. "Can I see?"
He handed it to her. As she took it, a distinct clink echoed in the room. Lyra felt the cold metal, the hole in the center, and the rough ridges of the coin. She giggled, tucking it into her pocket. To her, it was a treasure.
Five minutes later, their cousin, a cynical ten-year-old named Kenji, walked in.
"Hey, Kenji! Look what Loki made!" Lyra cried, pulling the coin out.
Kenji squinted. "Look at what? Your hand is empty."
"No, it's right here!" Lyra held it up to his face.
Loki watched, his heart sinking. He could see the coin in Lyra's hand—it was glowing with a faint, ghostly green hue—but as Kenji reached out to grab it, his fingers passed right through the air. The "coin" flickered like a dying lightbulb and vanished into a puff of green smoke.
"Told you," Kenji sneered. "Your quirk is just a fancy flashlight, Loki. It's a dud. You can't make anything real."
Lyra started to cry, insisting she had felt the metal. But Loki didn't cry. He sat in silence, his mind whirring with a terrifying, logical precision.
Why did she feel it? Kenji didn't see it because he expected Loki to fail. Lyra felt it because she knew her brother was magic.
The epiphany hit him like a physical blow. His quirk wasn't "Illusion" in the traditional sense. It was Psychosomatic Projection. The "Weight" of his power wasn't determined by his stamina or his mana; it was determined by the Audience.
If the audience believed the lie, the lie became the truth.
Mother's Wish
That night, Loki couldn't sleep. He went to the attic, rummaging through old boxes until he found a small, leather-bound book. His mother's diary.
He flipped through the pages, reading about her daily life, her love for his father, and finally, a section dated just weeks before her death.
"Loki is so quiet lately. He thinks his quirk is a burden because the other children make fun of him. He thinks being an 'Illusionist' means he can never be a hero. He doesn't understand that the greatest heroes are the ones who give people something to believe in when the world is dark. I hope one day he finds the confidence to take the stage. I wish I could see him in a hero's suit. My little Grand Illusionist... he has the heart of a Sovereign."
Loki felt a lump in his throat. He had spent years being "practical," planning to go into business or law because it was the "safe" path for someone with a "weak" quirk.
He closed the diary. His hazel eyes burned with a new fire.
He wasn't going to be a hero because of "justice" or "glory." He was going to be a hero because he was the only one who could turn a lie into a world worth living in. And practically speaking? He was too talented to do anything else.
The Decision
The Next evening, the family sat at the dinner table. Arthur was talking about a shipping delay, and Lyra was excitedly showing off the "real" tea cup Loki had made.
Loki cleared his throat. He straightened his posture, the nonchalant mask settling over his face, but his eyes were steady.
"Dad," Loki said.
Arthur looked up. "Yes, son?"
"I've decided on my career path. I'm not going to the local academy for business."
Arthur paused, his fork midway to his mouth. "Oh? What did you have in mind?"
Loki snapped his fingers. Above the dining table, a miniature, shimmering green version of the UA High School crest appeared. It was so vivid it cast a glow on their faces.
"I'm going to UA. I'm going to be a hero."
Lyra cheered, jumping in her seat. "I knew it!
Arthur looked at the crest, then at his son. He saw the change in Loki—the shift from a boy who was hiding to a young man who was ready to perform. He knew they weren't rich. He knew the risks.
"It's a hard path, Loki," Arthur said seriously. "Especially for someone with... your specific abilities. You'll be fighting people with fire and steel."
Loki stood up, adjusting his cuffs. "Let them bring their fire and steel, Dad. I'll just convince them they're standing on a stage made of paper."
Arthur smiled, a tear of pride pricking his eye. "Then we have work to do. If you're going to UA, you need to be the best."
Loki nodded. "The training starts tomorrow. I have ten months until the entrance exam. By the time I walk through those gates, the world won't know what's real anymore."
That night, Loki stood on the balcony of their home, looking out at the city lights. He held a single playing card in his hand.
Snap.
The card turned into a jagged green shard. He flicked it. It didn't dissolve. It embedded itself an inch deep into the wooden railing.
He looked at his reflection in the glass door. The nonchalant, self-centered boy was still there, but now, he was a boy with a script.
"Curtain up," he whispered.