Ryo Henko

Ryo Henko is a character in the w4ffl5 Expanded Universe.

Appearance
Ryo is a teenage boy of average height and build. He has black hair and eyes with a short fringe over his forehead.

His Hero costume consists of a green trench coat, worn over light body armour. His coat has several inner pockets, where he keeps dozens of small objects made of different materials. He also wears a special pair of headphones.

Personality
As a child, Ryo was bright, cheerful, and idolized All Might. However, after his parents were murdered, his personality changed to one of cynicism and vengeance.

He despised All Might for not saving his parents, and this hatred almost made him turn to villainy, but he decided instead of defeating All Might, he would exceed him and become a Hero who could actually save everyone.

Quirk
Osmosis: Allows Ryo to absorb the properties of any material he touches. The absorption starts from the point of contact and can spread freely, even covering his entire body, so long as he maintains contact with the material. He can maintain the properties indefinitely and discarded at will. Ryo cannot absorb the properties of living things like flesh or plants.

While a part of him is transformed, Ryo is able to reshape and mould that part freely, but doing so expends energy. If he runs out of energy he will not be able to maintain the materials properties and they will fade even if the part has been reshaped.

Support Items
Knick-Knacks: Ryo keeps several small objects in the pockets of his trench coat, each object made of a different material. This selection keeps growing as Ryo constantly collects new bits and pieces to add to his collection.

Kevlar Body Armour: Under his coat, Ryo wears light body armour, including chest and back plate, elbow and knee pads; shin guards, groin cup and fingerless gloves; all padded with Kevlar.

Headphones: Ryo’s headphones act as a hearing device as well as a noise cancelling device. The hearing function is almost on par with Kyoka Jiro’s Quirk, and the noise cancelling function allows Ryo to withstand a moderate-strength shout from Present Mic.

Super Moves

 * Metal Fist: Ryo turns his fist to metal and launches a solid punch.
 * Slashing Fist: Ryo shapes his fist into a metal blade before punching.
 * Splinterboard: Ryo turns his arm into a plank of wood and swings it, leaving several splinters in his target.
 * Ruby Hammer: Ryo turns his fists into rubies and merges them into a single sledgehammer shape, before swinging it at his opponent.
 * Nylon Thread: Ryo takes the properties of nylon and forms it into a long thin appendage to use to attack or as a utility.
 * Steel Thread: Ryo can use metal instead of nylon but it is much heavier and harder to manipulate.
 * Ignition: Ryo turns one hand into the materials in a match head, and his other hand into the materials in the matchbox strip before clapping his hands together.
 * Stealth Mode: Ryo turns his body to glass.That’s it.
 * Emergency Escape: In a dire situation, Ryo can absorb the properties of air and fly away in gas form, however doing this leaves all his equipment behind and he will reconstitute naked.
 * Body Pillow: Ryo absorbs the properties of his trench coat, making him shockproof and fireproof, as well as surprisingly well-camouflaged.
 * Rubber Body: Ryo can use rubber instead of cloth, exchanging fireproofing for electric immunity.
 * Bug Flight: Ryo absorbs chitin into his back and forms beetle wings, enabling him flight.

Origin
As a child, Ryo was a bright and cheerful light in a dull circumstance. He was raised in a poor family, both of his parents worked themselves to the bone to provide for him. Despite living in poverty, Ryo aspired to be a great superhero just like All Might, who he so admired, and talked about his future heroics enthusiastically to his parents. The stories he would come up with were the one thing that brought joy to his parents’ lives, and his smile was the one motivation for them to keep working.

Due to his poverty, Ryo did not have any friends besides Mister Blob, a lump of plasticine with bits of coal for eyes. Instead, he would spend every afternoon in front of the display at the TV store, wide-eyed watching All Might on the news. “I AM HERE!” he would announce in unison with his idol every time he rescued someone. Ryo believed without a shadow of a doubt that All Might was the greatest and could save anyone, anywhere, anytime.

All of this changed one fateful night. The Henko family was walking home from their blacksmith shop, an 8-year-old Ryo was excitedly telling his parents about his newest story when a man dressed in an expensive-looking suit stepped in their way. The man said something about them being a disgrace and the scum of society and how it was his job to ‘cleanse the bloodline’. Still off-guard, Ryo watched in horror as two long black tentacle-like appendages shot out of the man’s upper back straight at them. Hayama and Chifuyu leapt into action and put up a good fight, but the man’s tentacles overwhelmed them, killing them both with a stab through the head.

Ryo stood frozen in terror as the man turned and walked towards him. The man stood less than a metre from Ryo, and for about 10 seconds there was no noise besides Ryo’s irregular, panicked breathing. Finally the man simply smirked and flicked some blood off his tentacle onto Ryo’s face, before launching himself into the air with his tentacles. Ryo’s knees suddenly buckled and he fell down wailing over the lifeless bodies of his parents.

From that moment onwards, the bright and cheerful light had been extinguished. After the hospital took his parents into the surgery, Ryo lay on the bed in the rehabilitation room clutching a shard of his father, thoughts swirling around his head like a cyclone. Why didn’t All Might come to the rescue? Who was that man last night? What did he mean ‘scum of society’? Why did the man kill my parents? Where was All Might? WHY DIDN’T ALL MIGHT SAVE MY PARENTS?

After the doctor told Ryo that his parents had passed away at the moment of the fatal attack and he trudged all the way back to his house, Ryo began to harbour a deep contempt for All Might and Pro Heroes in general. This pure hatred festered in him for over eight years and almost led him to villainy, but he had a revelation. He now had a new goal. He no longer wanted to be like All Might, since All Might clearly wasn’t able to save everyone. All Might was a liar. Ryo was going to be different. He was going to become a hero who actually could save everyone. Ryo enrolled himself into UA’s Hero Course and was successfully accepted into Class 1-B. Thus began the career of the Elemental Hero: Metamorph!

At first, Ryo was annoyed and bitter that All Might was one of his teachers, but over the next three years and after a good heart-to-heart chat (where All Might almost shared the secret of One For All with him by accident), Ryo managed to forgive All Might, giving him a sincere handshake at graduation.

Story
During his first year, Ryo designed his Hero costume around the requirement that he needed easy access to a variety of materials. A scrapped design suggested by Power Loader featured a spandex outfit with spots of different materials weaved into the fabric. Ryo decided on a more casual look, sporting a trench coat with different materials in its pockets. He originally designed the coat to be infused with his DNA so that it would also transform with his Osmosis, but the prototype was a failure.

When the time came for the students to undertake the Internship program, All Might subtly warned Ryo not to intern at Kaatsu Hero Agency, an agency owned by the Pressurization Hero: Airshock. In an effort to spite All Might, Ryo applied to intern at Kaatsu Hero Agency, only to discover that the manager was none other than the man who killed his parents six years ago, Nobichi Makoto, who also revealed himself to be Henko Chifuyu’s older brother. Ryo stumbled from this dizzying revelation as Makoto prepared to kill him. Right when he went for the kill, Ryo absorbed the piece of Sledgehammer in his pocket, deflecting the tentacles. Filled with rage, Ryo lunged at Makoto, fists in the form of sledgehammers.

As the two went back and forth attacking each other, Makoto explained that Henko Hayama and Nobichi Chifuyu used to  live in separate worlds, Hayama lived in poverty while Chifuyu and Makoto lived in luxury. Naturally, when Chifuyu told her family she wanted to marry Hayama, that news was nothing short of scandalous, but she did it anyway despite her parents’ disapproval. After the marriage, Chifuyu was disowned by her family and wound up living in poverty with Hayama, but to her parents’ dismay, she continued to live happily despite her pitiful social status. Ryo kept attacking relentlessly, screaming “WHY?”. Makoto went on the explain that he had taken it upon himself to make things right, to cleanse his family name, by eliminating the Henkos. Makoto had finally worn down Ryo’s endurance and his Sledgehammer properties began to fade. His chipped and scratched hammers turned into bloody fists. Makoto stood over Ryo and muttered that the other Henko was a failure, and it appears his son is no different.

Just as Makoto was about to land the killing strike, All Might burst in through the window of the 4th storey office and launched himself at Makoto, but his tentacles were too fast and managed to entangle All Might, immobilising him. Makoto began taunting All Might in an effort to rub more salt into Ryo wounds, saying how he let a little boy lose his parents before tipping his head back and laughing maniacally. Ryo used this opportunity to focus, suppress his fury and think clearly. When Makoto finally stopped laughing he looked in Ryo’s direction, only to be met with a sledgehammer made of ruby slamming into his face, knocking him across the room and stunning him with the fact that Ryo’s Quirk was more than just his father’s as well as the impact.

“Henko-Shonen--” gasped All Might as he was released from Makoto’s grip. Ryo ignored him, his eyes fixed on Makoto’s disfigured face. Makoto tried to scramble away, but Ryo swung his ruby hammer downwards, crushing Makoto’s legs. Ryo grabbed Makoto by the neck, cutting off his pained scream, and pulled his face close to his own. Makoto let out a frightened squeak as Ryo’s glare drilled into him, overflowing with killing intent. Ryo dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled it out in the form of a bloody knife, and pressed it against Makoto’s throat. Ryo suddenly paused and looked towards All Might, who turned his back. After a moment of deep thought, Ryo reluctantly released his grip on Makoto’s neck, who slumped to the floor and started blubbering incoherently. Ryo turned to walk out the door, telling All Might to call the authorities and show them the security footage, which would provide sufficient evidence to convict Makoto of murder.

That evening, Ryo was lying on his bed in his dorm room, staring at the piece of Sledgehammer. All Might knocked on the door and came in. Ryo demanded answers, starting with how he knew about his connection to Makoto. All Might took a deep breath, sat down and began to explain. All Might had known about Makoto as the manager of Kaatsu Hero Agency for a long time, ever since Airshock first hired him over nine years ago, and at the time, the Nobichi family was one of the wealthiest families in the city. Ever since his early days working for Airshock, Makoto had always had an openly extreme hatred for poor people, and threw around terms like ‘scum of society’ when referring to them, even around Airshock. All Might frequently overheard Makoto saying terrible things about people with low social status to whoever would listen to him at Hero meetings.

Makoto often mentioned he had a younger sister, but about eight years ago he had started telling people he was an only child. This piqued All Might’s curiosity, so he began to do some research into Makoto’s background. All Might learned that Makoto did have a younger sister named Chifuyu, who was murdered eight years ago, which lined up with why Makoto now claimed to be an only child. But, while examining his financial records, he found out that the Nobichi Estate had removed Chifuyu’s name from the registration almost ten years ago, two years prior to Chifuyu’s death. Why would they remove her registration while she was alive? Did they know she was going to die? Surely not… right? All Might decided to further investigate Chifuyu’s death. Her hospital records fill in her cause of death as a fatal attack to the head. All Might then had a look at Chifuyu’s husband’s information, and learned that Henko Hayama had been murdered in the same way, and their hospital reports were filed on the same day.

All Might summarised the order of events. Up until seventeen years ago, Nobichi Makoto and Nobichi Chifuyu were registered as heirs to the Nobichi Estate. Nobichi Chifuyu got married to Henko Hayama, and her name was erased from the Nobichi Estate almost immediately after the marriage. This was clearly not coincidental. Approximately nine years after that, eight years before the present, both of them were murdered at the same time, presumably by the same person, leaving their 8-year-old son, Henko Ryo, orphaned. Unable to draw any solid conclusions, All Might dropped the matter.

At the start of this year, when the UA teachers were sorting the students into classes, All Might recognised one of the new students’ names, Henko Ryo, the orphaned kid whose parents were murdered in front of him. All Might, still suspicious of Makoto, felt the urge to protect Ryo from him, which is why he hinted to Ryo not to intern at Kaatsu Heo Agency, but Ryo went there anyway, so All Might followed him too keep an eye on Makoto.

As Ryo processed this information, he pressed All Might again, asking where he was on the night of the murder. All Might thought back to that time. Where was he eight years ago again? That was around the time he was bombarded by film producers, trying to persuade him to star in his own movie. All Might had holed himself in his home, only leaving to rescue people when there was a report on the radio. They wouldn’t stop bothering him for almost 3 years before All Might had finally caved and agreed to a TV show, what would later become the incredibly popular “The Amazing All Might”. All Might apologised for letting the stress from such a materialistic issue prevent him from rescuing innocent people.

After graduating from UA and becoming a registered Hero, most of his peers joined a Hero Agency, but Ryo decided that wasn’t for him, instead he chose to become a freelance Hero, patrolling the city under the radar.

Trivia

 * Ryo's backstory is inconsistent with BNHA canon. It has All Might as a teacher at UA 4 years before he would actually take that job.
 * Ryo's Quirk, Osmosis, is heavily influenced by Ben 10's Kevin Levin.