Fanfic / Dragonspawn

Instant awesome, just add dragons!: The Fanfic.

Dragonspawn is a My Hero Academia Self-Insert Fic by Blackout, in which he reincarnates as Ryuuzaki Tatsuma, the younger sibling of the Dragon Hero, Ryukyu. It focuses on how being a dragon affects Ryuuzaki's ambition to become a hero and their time at U.A. High.

It can be found on SpaceBattles, Sufficient Velocity and Archive of Our Own.

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This fanfic provides examples of:

• 10-Minute Retirement: Ryuuzaki attempts to resign as vice-president of Class 1-B because they believe their poor judgment during Fujiwara's attempts to provoke them into opening 1-B's door during a lockdown makes them unworthy of the position. The class holds a new election, and Ryuuzaki is unanimously reelected.
• Abusive Parents: Not Ryuuzaki’s, but their mother’s. She was her father’s Unfavorite for not wishing to become a hero, and was kicked out of the family due to a teenage pregnancy.
• Accomplice by Inaction: Todoroki hates Endeavour so much that he won't use his fire to save his father from Stain. It's not until Stain is about to kill Ryuuzaki that Shoto finally uses his fire against the Hero Killer.
• Adaptation Expansion: The Recommended Students Exam gets shown in full, as does 1-B's side of the school year.
• Adapted Out: Because Ryuuzaki and Yoarashi join Class 1-B, Shoda and Kamakiri end up not attending UA.
• Affectionate Nickname: Ryuko shortens Ryuuzaki to ‘Zaki.
• Always in Class One: Averted, Ryuuzaki gets placed in Class 1-B.
• Amazonian Beauty: When Ryuuzaki returns to human form, Vlad King describes her as just as muscular as himself. Later, she gets a flirt-compliment from Kaminari asking her if she has a license for her guns (her impressive biceps).
• Ambiguous Gender Identity: Ryuuzaki has been referred to by both “she” and “they” pronouns, in-story and out (including by the author), and identified as a cisgender male before reincarnating. Implicitly, they aren’t entirely firm on this matter, but it ties into the theme of self-identity that pervades the narrative.
• An Arm and a Leg: Stain cuts off one of Endeavour's hands. Ryuuzaki bites off Stain's left arm in return.
• And Then What?: Ryuuzaki uses this argument against Stain, pointing out that murdering false heroes isn't enough to make hero society better.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Ryuuzaki collects merchandise of their big sister specifically because they know Ryuko is embarassed about it existing.
• Ascended Extra: Ryuko, being a minor character in canon, gets this as the main character’s sister. Also all of Class 1-B, as they are where Ryuuzaki gets placed (save Shoda and Kamakiri).
• The Baby Trap: In a variation, Ryutsuki had a child out of wedlock to escape an Arranged Marriage; she also lied that she was using protection, so her partner never knew of his child until Ryuko - who now knows the Parental Abandonment was not intended - makes contact with her blood father, who turns out to be Denki Kaminari's father.
• Beast Man: Ryuuzaki's father, Kenshin Tatsuma, has the pachyderm skin and head of a rhinoceros.
• Behemoth Battle: Ryuuzaki vs Jurota Shishida, and later Dark Shadow. And a third time against Nomu.
• Big Damn Heroes: Just as Shigaraki is about to disintegrate Ryuuzaki, Bakugou comes in to save her while Yoarashi and Todoroki combine their Quirks to blow the both of them to safety.
• Big Sister Instinct: Ryuko is highly protective of Ryuuzaki, demanding that Fujiwara be fired for verbally harassing her. Just thinking of Ryuuzaki being hurt gets Ryuko angry enough to use their Breath Weapon.
• Big Sister Mentor: Ryuko to Ryuuzaki, again. Not only does she train them physically, she imparts important life lessons.
• Big Eater: Ryuuzaki needs to eat a huge amount of meat every day. Justified, as they are stuck in the form of a huge carnivore.
• Big Little Sibling: By the time they go to UA, Ryuuzaki's dragon form is bigger than Ryuko's despite being ten years younger. Justified, as they are genetically half-siblings and Ryuuzaki's father is massive. It also applies in their human forms.
• Blinded by Rage: In a literal case, Ryuuzaki's rage at Ryuo ends up causing them to breathe smoke during their fight with Tokoyami, blocking their vision and empowering Dark Shadow.
• Breath Weapon: Ryuuzaki breathes fire whilst Ryuko breathes lightning. The strength of the attack depends on how angry they are at the time.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: Despite being a giant dragon, Ryuko teaches Ryuuzaki how to grapple in case they ever has to fight someone their own size. Which comes in handy during the Sports Festival against Shishida.
• Bullying a Dragon: An almost literal case, when kids pick on Ryuuzaki for being a loner despite their ability to turn into a dragon. Ryuuzaki decides it's better if they just ignore the bullies.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: This is the only reason Shigaraki doesn't kill Fujiwara for abandoning the USJ attack to settle a personal score: he needs the man to help find Stain.
• Celebrity Superhero: As in canon high-ranking Pro-Heroes become this. It’s noted that there is an unwritten rule not to bother hero families, but as Ryuuzaki begins a path towards becoming a hero their now free game, and receives a lot of attention from the media as Ryuko’s sister, to their chagrin.
• Central Theme: Self-identity and being comfortable within yourself is a massive theme in the story. Ryuuzaki wasn’t entirely happy reincarnating female and appreciates their dragon form, yet at the same time isn’t content being locked into the latter and misses a lot of the simpler things a human body grants; they also caused the locks subconsciously as a result of the trauma in nearly dying to Fujiwara. Groups who want to affect society for their own given value of “betterment” are also affecting things in the background, and their father - a man with a rhinoceros head - was formerly part of this movement; their and Ryuko’s mother also rebelled against her family’s desire for her to become a hero, which her brother resents because he wishes to have inherited her more potent shape-shifting power.
• Chekhov's Skill: Gang Orca teaching Ryuuzaki echolocation comes in handy when a Nomu decides to Kill the Lights.
• Cool Big Sis: Ryuko, definitely. Kendo also gets to shine as the collective big sister of 1-B.
• Crazy-Prepared: Nezu has written all kinds of contingency plans in case UA gets attacked. They end up coming in handy when Fujiwara breaks off from the USJ attack to go after Ryuuzaki.
• Creepy Good: Being a monstrous dragon, Ryuuzaki doesn't exacly look heroic. They even gets mistaken for a villain by a panicking civilian that they're trying to save.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Two occur in the sports festival.
  • Tokoyami vs. Ryuuzaki starts out as this on Tokoyami's side, as Ryuuzaki is involuntarily breathing smoke that is blinding them and enhancing Tokoyami's quirk. Ryuuzaki unlocking the ability to breathe fire immediately makes it this in the other direction, as Dark Shadow is Weakened by the Light and Tokoyami is a Squishy Wizard who depends entirely on Dark Shadow, whereas Ryuuzaki is a dragon in an Unstoppable Rage; rather than drag out the fight any longer, Tokoyami surrenders.
  • Midoriya vs. Bakugo has Midoriya strike Bakugo with the shockwave from a full-arm 100% Smash, knocking him out of bounds in one hit.
• Cursed with Awesome: After being shot, Ryuuzaki is stuck as a dragon. Though there are certain downsides, like being unable to fit into certain places, and losing sensation of touch.
• David Versus Goliath: Kendo and Tokage vs Ryuuzaki. In a straight-up fight they can’t do much to them, but with some clever planning and use of the terrain coupled with Ryuuzaki’s indecisiveness they manage to slow them down long enough for the scenarios timer to run out.
• Demoted to Extra: All of Class 1-A, being reduced to a handful of cameos from Kirishima and Todoroki. They receive much more attention during and after the Sports Festival.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Fujiwara gets fired for blowing up on Ryuuzaki when he realizes they're from a Pro-Hero family. This leads him to try to murder them in revenge.
• Does Not Know Her Own Strength: Ryuuzaki had to go through a lot of trials to manage her dragon body after being stuck in it, especially due to a lack of touch. When she finally returns to her human form, she's spent so long in it that she can barely remember how to walk, and a lack of dexterity means that she's often breaking things, since her human body is a brickhouse.
• Double Knockout: Kuroiro and Awase end up taking each other out during the initial battle training.

• Dragon Rider: Ryuuzaki ends up being ridden by Nejire while they're training against Snipe in preparation for the Sports Festival. Midoriya and Bakugo later attempt to ride them during the obstacle course, and Uraraka, Midoriya (again), and Yoarashi end up riding them during the cavalry battle. Later on, Pony, Yui, and Yanagi ride Ryuuzaki during a 1-B training exercise, and Ryuuzaki gives Endeavour, Todoroki, and Strikethrough a ride to Kofu while they're investigating the Broken Circle.
• Dramatic Irony: At the point when Denki Kaminari hits on Ryuuzaki, the readers are aware that the two of them share a half-sibling (Ryuuzaki and Ryuko have the same mother, while Ryuko and Kaminari have the same father).
• Dude, Not Funny!: Vlad King and Kendo are pissed when Yui has Yanagi use her telekinesis to make Ryuuzaki think there's something in the water knowing full well Ryuuzaki has a phobia of underwater creatures.
• Dungeon Bypass: Ryuuzaki is forced to resort to this during their training match, as the tight hallways combined with their sheer size left them vulnerable to Tokage’s ambushes. During both the Recommended Student Exam and the Sports Festival Obstacle Course they are also able to bypass much of the obstacles simply by being able to fly over them, though on both occasions the track is designed to prevent them from flying the entire way to the goal.

• Exact Eavesdropping: Ryuuzaki overhears Todoroki confronting Endeavour about how he only brought Ryuuzaki on as an intern as a tool to convince Todoroki to use his fire. Shoto was Staging the Eavesdrop, hoping Ryuuzaki would leave Endeavour's agency once they found out.
• Expressive Ears: As a dragon, Ryuuzaki often uses their ears in lieu of facial expressions to convey their emotions.
• Eye Scream: Vlad King loses his left eye in his fight against Dabi (along with all of his hair).
• Family Disunion: Ryuuzaki and their family receive a very hostile reception in their grandfather’s funeral.
• Fatal Flaw: For both Ryuuzaki and Ryuko, their passiveness. When dealing with personal issues they both have a tendency to ignore it and tough it out rather than confront it, for a fear of worsening the situation.

• First-Episode Twist: Ryuuzaki’s Shapeshifter Mode Lock is a big twist that changes the apparent trajectory of the story in a massive way... in Chapter 5.
• For Want Of A Nail: Ryuuzaki meets Yoarashi during the Recommended Student Exam and befriends him, causing him to accept his admittance to UA, and the two end up as the Recommended Students of Class 1-B.
  • This also means that Honenuki and Tokage are forced to enter via the normal exam, taking the spots that would have gone to Kamakiri and Shoda in canon. Notably, this leads to Tokage being much more insecure than in canon, which they take out on Ryuuzaki.
  • Furthermore since Honenuki entered the regular exam he took the top spot from Bakugo, making him the Student Representative in the Sports Festival and preventing Bakugo from holding his disastrous speech. This leads to a much smaller degree of animosity between classes, which meant Monoma couldn't gather enough support for his plan to deceive 1-A about their capabilities.
  • Todoroki fights Yoarashi in the Sports Festival instead of Midoriya, averting his canon Character Development. Instead, he first uses his fire when he realizes that by holding back he’s allowing innocent people to die, when Stain has Ryuuzaki at his mercy.
  • Due to Ryuuzaki’s presence changing the course of the Sports Festival, Midoriya ends up winning the entire tournament. However, the additional attention placed on him allows All For One to figure out Midoriya is One For All’s next bearer after seeing him interact with All-Might during the award ceremony, and the League begins targeting him.
  • Fujiwara’s personal grudge against Ryuuzaki leads him to desert the League of Villains during the USJ battle and sneak into the main building where Class 1-B are in lockdown. This leads to Shigaraki hunting him down as a traitor, only sparing his life in exchange for leading the League to Stain. This leads to the Hosu battle taking place before the Sports Festival and Ingenium never being crippled.
  • One for both an out AND in-universe perspective is Nejire’s canonical internship with Ryukyu: both of them get so caught up in their interview over arranging it that Ryuko loses track of time and is late for her training with Ryuuzaki, which indirectly results in the attack by Fujiwara and Zaki’s Shapeshifter Mode Lock. From a canon perspective, the emotional toll of this, and Nejire’s unwitting contribution, leads to Ryuko not taking her on unlike in canon. In-universe, Nejire upon finding out can’t help feeling guilty, considering that although nobody could’ve known it would happen, Ryuko would’ve been with Ryuuzaki that afternoon and they wouldn’t have been attacked if she hadn’t been such a distraction.
  • Due to Shinsou's actions in the Sports festival, he was transferred out of UA to a different hero school.
• Frozen Face: Once they're stuck as a dragon Ryuuzaki is left physically incapable of human facial expressions, relying on body language to convey their emotions.
• Gentle Giant: Ryuuzaki is stuck as a massive dragon, but remains their shy and socially awkward self.
• Gender Bender: Although a male in their past life, Ryuuzaki is reborn as a girl.
• Giant Flyer: Ryuuzaki and Ryuko's dragon forms are roughly elephant-sized and still fully capable of flight, able to carry several passengers on their backs.
• The Glomp: Kendo and Tsunotori give this to Ryuuzaki when she returns after the summer camp arc, during which she was captured. However, since she is back in her human form with very poor balance, they all immediately go down in a heap.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Ryuo Tatsuma is jealous of his sister and nieces for inheriting a full dragon transformation while he only got Super-Senses.
• Heel Realization: Two so far.
  • After being lectured by Vlad King and Kendo, Yui realizes pranking Ryuuzaki by playing on their phobia was bullying and apologizes.
  • Much later, Endeavour realizes how horrible a father he has been after Shoto refuses to use his fire to save him but does use it to save Ryuuzaki, a virtual stranger.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Yoarashi defeats Todoroki in the Sports Festival by using his wind quirk and the water vapor from Todoroki's glacier to create a lightning cloud, a tactic Todoroki can only defeat if he gives up on his Self-Imposed Challenge to never use his left side and sends out heat to raise the cloud out of Yoarashi's reach. Todoroki does not do this because he associates his fire with his hated father, and so he loses by getting struck by lightning.
• Heroism Motive Speech: Ryuuzaki gives one to her father post-summer camp, when the teachers want to move her into UA and her father wants to pull her out of UA entirely due to the danger. Having realized that she's more afraid of others getting hurt because of her than herself being hurt (which is why she subconsciously locked herself in her dragon form), and that since she has the power and wants to help people in need with it, she owes it to herself and everyone else to be that hero and work to improve the world, instead of waiting on someone else to do it.
• Homeschooled Kids: Ryuuzaki is pulled out of school and homeschooled after they become stuck in dragon form. They do not return to school until they go to UA.
• Horn Attack: Ryuuzaki uses their horns in both forms, first to break Fujiwara’s nose during their fight and later to decapitate a Zero-Pointer robot during the Sports Festival. More gruesomely, they also use them to impale a Nomu during the Kashyyyk Mall battle, severing its spinal cord.
• Horned Humanoid: Ryuuzaki’s human form has two small rhino-like horns that they inherited from their father.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Ryuuzaki initially didn’t even know they could breathe fire, due to never having gotten angry enough to use it.
• Huge Schoolgirl: Ryuuzaki Tatsuma, and we mean huge. Even putting her dragon form aside, her human form at just 15 years old is 199 cm (or 6'6") tall, making her taller than her older sister and even Vlad King (who's 194 cm). The tallest of her year-mates, Yoarashi, only comes up to her eyes, and the rest only just reach her abs.
• I Have No Son!: Ryuuzaki and Ryuko's grandfather disowned their mother for getting pregnant as a teenager.
• Inadequate Inheritor: Ryuo Tatsuma considers his niece Ryuko to be this for the family legacy. Ironically she ends up being a much more successful Hero than he is.
• Incendiary Exponent: Ryuuzaki eventually learns to control her Breath Weapon and wrap herself in flame, to protect herself from smaller enemies trying to outmaneuver her.
• In Love with Your Carnage: Toga, as per canon, although here she fixates on Ryuuzaki for ripping off Stain's arm.
• The Juggernaut: Ryuuzaki. They've crashed through a castle wall without slowing down and once they decided to disregard collateral damage during training there was nothing the opposing team could do to stop them. Only Ryuko, darkness-empowered Dark Shadow and One For All itself have managed to actually stop them.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: A nonlethal variation. Stain goes on his Motive Rant as per canon, but Ryuuzaki grabs him in the middle of his speech and proceeds to smash him into the ground, knocking him out.
• Large and in Charge: Being a dragon Ryuuzaki outmasses the rest of 1-B combined, and is elected as Vice-Class President.
• Legacy Character: It’s explained that this is where Ryuko’s hero name, Ryukyu, comes from, as she is the ninth Dragon Hero from the Tatsuma family. Ryuuzaki ends up adopting the hero name Ryuju, the tenth Dragon Hero.
• Little Bit Beastly: Ryuuzaki’s human form has rhino-like horns from their father, and sharpened teeth from their mother.
• Magic Pants: Ryuuzaki’s clothes simply disappear and reappear, but Ryuko’s power somehow resizes their clothing to fit her dragon form.
• Meteor Move: Ryuuzaki ends up beating Shishida in the Sports Festival by dragging him into the sky, throwing him down, and piledriving him into the concrete arena.
• Misplaced Retribution: Fujiwara hates hero families because he thinks he was expelled from UA due to favoritism for relatives of Pro Heroes, when he was actually kicked out for being a lazy jerk. As a result, he lashes out at Ryuuzaki for benefitting from this system, then tries to kill them because he thinks they used their influence to get him fired for that. (They didn't; not knowingly, at least.)
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: After finding out that Shinso brainwashed them into joining his team for the cavalry battle, Ojiro, Yui, and Pony all mutiny and give their headbands to Ryuuzaki, Yoarashi, Midoriya and Uraraka.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Ryuuzaki’s dragon form looks like a western dragon crossed with a rhinoceros.
• Morality Chain: Ryuko is this to Ryuuzaki, who refuses to kill Fujiwara or ruin Shinso's career due to how Ryuko would react.
• Morphic Resonance: Ryuuzaki’s dragon form has the same snow-white colour as their hair, and possesses the same kind of horns.
• Never Be Hurt Again: The reason why Ryuuzaki cannot change back from her dragon form to human: she's scared of getting hurt again and wants to become as invulnerable as she can make herself, so she subconsciously keeps herself from transforming. She only manages to transform back after All For One almost kills her, making her realize that her dragon form is no safer than her human one.
• Nice Guy: Gang Orca. When Ryuuzaki asks him why he's taking the time out of his day to help them overcome their Thalassophobia when he's not their teacher or in any way obligated to help them, he simply replies that it's because he can.
• Nigh-Invulnerable: It's very difficult to hurt Ryuuzaki in dragon form. They use this to their advantage in the Sports Festival by just walking through the minefield and tanking the hits.
• No-Sell: Being a fire dragon, Ryuuzaki simply ignores Endeavour’s first flame blast. He then melts the floor underneath them to open them up to a punch in the throat, demonstrating the limits of their immunity.
• O.C. Stand-in: Fujiwara is based on one of the USJ thugs. Ryuo is based on a background Pro-Hero who expresses he wishes he had a Quirk like Shinso.
• Parents as People: Ryuko reflects that their mother hasn’t always been perfect when it came to raising her and Ryuuzaki, but most of it stemmed from her own rough childhood, and she genuinely tries her best.
• Past-Life Memories: Ryuuzaki remembers their old life up until the point where he died, though the memories are starting to fade.
• Playing with Fire: Training with Endeavour reveals that Ryuuzaki is also capable of full-blown pyrokinesis by manipulating the fire created by their Breath Weapon, though initially this only means adjusting its shape and direction.
• Power Incontinence: Downplayed, but Ryuuzaki’s internal temperature corresponds to their emotional state, and when they're angered they can burn things that come in contact with them. This is the first hint that their Breath Weapon is tied to their anger.
  • Discussed by David Shield in Chapter 41, and how Quirks can be affected by the mental state of their wielder. This explains Ryuuzaki's inability to transform as an example of this trope, as due to her trauma she subconsciously refuses to return to human.
• The Power of Hate: Ryuuzaki fuels their Breath Weapon with their anger at Fujiwara and Ryuo.
• Rage Breaking Point: Ryuuzaki's rage at Ryuo for calling Ryuko a thief ends up causes them to breathe out smoke during their match against Tokoyami. When Dark Shadow starts taunting them for being weak (they aren't; the smoke just made Dark Shadow stronger), they snap and unlocks the ability to breathe fire.
• Recoil Boost: Ryuuzaki can use her Breath Weapon to propel herself forward at crucial moments, abandoning precision for raw speed.
• Related in the Adaptation: In Interlude 5, it is revealed that Ryuko is Denki Kaminari’s paternal half-sister.
• Required Secondary Powers: Ryuuzaki can heat their body up and eventually breathe jets of fire, so it only makes sense that they're fireproof themself.
  • This also grants them a minor degree of resistance to lightning, a current running through her body is still painful but because her tissue doesn't burn the damage is limited.
• Russian Reversal: In Nejire's quarterfinal match in the Sports Festival, she unleashes a slow-moving Wave Motion Giga-Blast. When her opponent declares she's never going to hit him with that, she laughs and says she's actually going to hit it with him, then blasts him into the Giga-Blast.
• Sensory Overload: As a Logical Weakness of their Super-Senses, Ryuuzaki is vulnerable to loud noises like flashbangs. They eventually get a noise-cancelling support item that helps mitigate this.
• Shapeshifter Mode Lock: After being shot in human form, Ryuuzaki transforms into their dragon form and is unable to change back. David Shield determines that it’s due to a mental block resulting from their trauma. They eventually manage to turn back to human after All For One beats them almost to death, and they realize that they'll never be completely safe in either form. Luckily, changing back completely heals their wounds.
• Shapeshifting Heals Wounds: Ryuko's Quirk works this way; unfortunately, Ryuuzaki's doesn't seem to be able to, causing them to be stuck in dragon form when their human form is badly injured.
  • David Shield eventually reveals that her Quirk is capable of healing wounds when she transforms, and the only reason she can't is because subconsciously she doesn't want to be human again; her feelings at viewing a projection of what her human form would look like now is a mix of complicated emotions like longing, disgust, and terror.
• Shock and Awe: Ryuko’s Breath Weapon allows her to launch lightning when in her dragon form. It is an inherited trait of her quirk from her biological father, Hideaki Kaminari.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Ryuuzaki refuses to give any credit to Stain's worldview, pointing out that it's unrealistic to expect all heroes to be paragons and that he doesn't have any plans for what should replace the current hero society.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Strikethrough, one of Endeavour's sidekicks, manages to inspire Ryuuzaki to stand against the Hero Killer.
  • David Shield, despite appearing only briefly in the story and spending most of it unconscious, eventually proves to be the one who manages to answer the question why Ryuuzaki cannot transform back into a human.
• Spanner in the Works: The League of Villains built several Nomu to take care of Gran Torino, Midoriya, Endeavour, and Shoto. But because they didn't know the specifics of Midoriya's Quirk or that Ryuuzaki was interning with Endeavour, there was nothing to counter either of them, and so they were able to stop the Nomu.
• Steven Ulysses Perhero: Every member of the Tatsuma family has a name starting with “Ryu-”, the japanese kanji for “dragon”, and possesses a dragon-related superpower. Justified, as Super Powerful Genetics is in play.
• Stout Strength: Ryuuzaki’s father, Kenshin.
• Successful Sibling Syndrome: Downplayed, but Ryuko is the Tenth-highest ranked Hero in Japan and world-famous, while Ryuuzaki is only starting their Hero career and often gets compared to their sister.
• Super Powerful Genetics: As is standard for My Hero Academia. Ryuuzaki’s father looks like a rhino and their mother can turn into a dragon, so they can turn into a dragon that looks like a rhino.
• Super-Scream: Ryuuzaki can roar loud enough to stun people nearby for a moment. This is how they defeat Yoarashi in the Sports Festival. Of course it hurts them as well thanks to their super senses, but once they acquire ear protection it becomes a valuable tool in their arsenal.
• Super-Senses: Most Tatsumas have some variation of this as part of their Quirk: Ryuuzaki has Super-Hearing, enhanced sense of smell and sharp eyesight. Ryuo only has this, which is a great irritant for him.
• Teen Pregnancy: Ryuko was the result of one of these. It's the reason her mother was disowned by her grandfather.
• There Are No Therapists: Averted. Ryuuzaki attends therapy to deal with their issues, though Vlad King and Nedzu worry that there are simply too many piling up for them to deal with properly.
• Thrill Seeker: Ryuuzaki becomes a hero partly because they enjoy the job and the freedom to use their Quirk that comes with it.
• Unknown Rival: Tokage wants to beat Ryuuzaki after being beaten by them in the UA recommended student exam. Ryuuzaki doesn't care about this, frequently offering encouragement to Tokage.
• Use Your Head: Ryuuzaki makes frequent use of headbutts when fighting opponents of their own size.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Ryuko gives Ryuuzaki this speech after the latter starts to doubt their motivation for becoming a Hero. They point out that there’s nothing wrong with enjoying using your Quirk, and that indeed you should enjoy your job lest you burn out.
• Villain Team-Up: Kurogiri offers Stain help with killing Endeavour if Stain hunts down Gran Torino. When Endeavour and Gran Torino team up to resolve a case, Stain calls in the Nomu to take them both out.
• Weredragon: The Tatsuma family Quirk involves turning into a dragon.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Ryuuzaki is afraid of sharks and other underwater beasts. This extends to Gang Orca, who they headbutt the first time they meet. Gang Orca ends up working with Ryuuzaki to overcome this fear, starting by teaching them echolocation so they can determine if a body of water is safe.
• Wham Episode: Chapter 52: Ryuuzaki gains the confidence to change back to human, even without being in danger, allowing Ryukyu to see her little sister's human form for the first time in years.
• Would Hurt a Child: Fujiwara tried to murder Ryuuzaki when they were thirteen, and tried to taunt them into opening a blast door so that he could fire into a classroom full of high school students.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Shishida uses a Suplex Finisher against Ryuuzaki during their Sports Festival match. Ryuuzaki counters with a Meteor Move.