The rain tasted like copper.
I didn't know why I thought that. Maybe because my lip was split. Or maybe it was just the way Tokyo rain always tasted after midnight—metallic, bitter, like the city itself was bleeding into the gutters.
I wiped the blood with my sleeve and kept walking.
My shoes were soaked through. Had been for the last three blocks. The sole on my left sneaker had a hole in it—been there for two months now. I kept meaning to replace them, but every time I saved enough, something else came up.
My little sister's school supplies. The electric bill that kept climbing no matter how much we rationed.
So I walked in wet socks and pretended my feet weren't numb.
Tokyo nights weren't kind to poor kids. Especially not ones who worked three part-time jobs just to keep the lights on at home.
But I didn't complain. What was the point? Complaining didn't pay bills. Complaining didn't put food on the table. Action did. So I worked.
Convenience store from 6 PM to 10 PM. Dish washing at a small ramen shop until 1 AM. Newspaper delivery at 4 AM before school started at 8.
Sleep was a luxury I couldn't afford.
I was seventeen. Average height, maybe 5'9" on a good day. Average grades—Cs and Bs, nothing remarkable. Average face, the kind you'd forget five minutes after meeting me.
Nothing special. Just another kid grinding through life, one shift at a time.
The crosswalk blinked red.
I stopped, shoving my hands deeper into my pockets. The fabric was thin. Threadbare. I could feel the cold seeping through. My phone buzzed—a text from my sister.
"Brought home leftover bread from school. Don't buy dinner."
I smiled a little.
She was twelve and smart as hell. Always thinking ahead and she knew I'd spend money I didn't have just to make sure she ate. So she found ways to save me from myself.
Good kid. Better than me 100%.
I typed back: "Thanks. See you in the morning."
The light stayed red. A car splashed through a puddle nearby, drenching a salaryman who cursed loudly. I stepped back, avoiding the spray. My feet squished inside my shoes.
I glanced at my watch—1:47 AM.
If I caught the next train, I'd be home by 2:15. Sleep for an hour and a half. Wake up at 3:45 for the newspaper route.
Same as always. Then I heard it. A scream.
It was sharp, high-pitched. My head snapped up like a turtle. Across the street, a kid—maybe six years old—stood frozen in the middle of the road.
His ball had rolled into traffic. A little red rubber ball, bouncing lazily toward the opposite curb.
He followed it, without thinking and looking. And a truck was barreling toward him.
The headlights were bright and blinding, but the kid still couldn't see them. The driver honked—long, desperate, panicked. The kid didn't budge.
He just stood there, eyes wide, clutching his hands to his chest.
Frozen. Time slowed and I saw everything.
The truck's screen of metal bars and the driver's horrified face. The kid's tiny sneakers—light-up ones, flashing red and blue.
I saw the mother on the sidewalk, mouth open in a silent scream, reaching out but too far away.
I saw the distance and the speed.
Did the math.
He wouldn't make it.
Nobody would reach him in time.
Nobody—
Except me.
I didn't think twice. Didn't hesitate. Didn't consider the consequences.
I just ran like a madman.
My legs burned and my lungs screamed. The rain made the asphalt slick, but I didn't slow down.
Five steps. Four. Three.
The truck's horn blared in my ears.
Two.
I reached him.
My hands found his small shoulders. I shoved—hard. Felt his body tumble back toward the sidewalk, toward safety, toward his mother's arms.
And then—
Impact. The world exploded.
Pain took over my body and spread everywhere.
All at once.
My body twisted in the air like a ragdoll. I felt bones snap, ribs and legs alike.
Tasted blood flooding my mouth.
Heard screaming—mine? Someone else's?
I didn't know.
The sky spun and the ground rushed up. I hit pavement.
The kid and the mother vanished and then the truck did.
Slowly, everything went white.
Then red.
Then black.
I heard my sister's voice in my head, calling my name.
"Nii-san. Nii-san, wake up. You're going to be late."
I wanted to answer but I had no voice.
"Nii-san, please."
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
Then… nothing.
Darkness. Cold and weightlessness.
Am I dead?
The thought came slowly, like trying to remember a dream.
I must be. I got hit by a truck after all.
Classic. I heard about these kinds of death from my close friend. Isekai.
I would've laughed if I had a body.
Was this what death felt like? Just… floating? No heaven. No hell. No bright light or tunnel.
Just emptiness and an endless drift.
Is this it?
Is this going to go on forever?
Time passed. Or maybe it didn't. Hard to tell when you're nowhere.
I thought about my sister. She'd blame herself. She always did when things went wrong.
It's not your fault, I wanted to tell her.
I made the choice. I'd do it again.
The kid lived. That's what mattered.
One life for another. Fair trade.
Right?
Right?
And then—
Light. It was blinding and was burning through the darkness like a blade.
I gasped.
Air rushed into my lungs like fire.
My eyes popped in and my chest heaved.
My heart slammed against my ribs—ribs that shouldn't exist anymore. My eyes snapped open.
It was smoke, dust and rubble. I was lying on my back, staring at a shattered sky.
Buildings crumbled around me and rebar protruded out like broken bones.
Concrete dust hung in the air, thick and choking. Sirens wailed in the distance and people screamed.
What the hell?
I sat up—too fast. My head spun and nausea clawed at my throat.
Where was I?
This wasn't Tokyo.
Well—it looked like Tokyo. But wrong. It was different somehow.
The buildings were taller and more modern. Some had strange architectural designs—curved, organic, like they'd been grown instead of built.
And the destruction—
This wasn't a truck accident. This was more of a warzone.
I looked down at my hands and they weren't mine. At least not what I remember.
These hands were bigger and rougher. Chapped in different places with scars that crisscrossed the knuckles.
I touched my face and felt a different bone structure. A sharper jaw and a nose slightly crooked—like it had been broken before.
My hair—I grabbed a handful—longer, darker, shaggier.
Panic clawed at my chest.
Where am I?
Who am I?
Did I actually get Isekai'd like that guy said?
A woman ran past me, sobbing. Blood streaked her face. She didn't even look at me.
A man in a torn business suit dragged someone through the debris, shouting for help.
A child sat against a collapsed wall, staring blankly at nothing.
And then I saw it.
A massive, ugly creature, easily four stories tall, rampaging through the street.
Its body was a twisted fusion of flesh and metal. Cables and veins tangled together.
One arm ended in a massive drill. The other had three fingers, each as thick as a telephone pole.
It roared—a sound that rattled my bones.
And fighting it—
Heroes.
Actual Heroes.
One wore a costume with a cannon grafted to his arm. He fired blasts of compressed air that barely staggered the creature.
Another, a woman with green hair, summoned massive vines from the ground, trying to restrain the monster.
A third hero, dressed in red and gold, moved with impossible speed, striking at weak points.
But they were losing. Eventually, my breath caught.
No way.
This isn't possible.
Those cool glowing things and those weird body shapes.
This is—
Heroes. Quirks. Villains. Disasters.
The world of My Hero Academia. Definitely.
The realization hit me like a second truck.
I am in the world of My Hero Academia.
But that was fiction, a manga that I read on my friend's phone during lunch breaks.
There were only two manga that I've completed in my entire lifetime, One Punch Man and My Hero Academia.
And this world didn't feel real.
Like how could it be? Except it was.
I felt the smoke in my lungs.
I looked around and the screams were real.
The blood on my hands—someone else's blood—was real.
I looked around again, trying to process. This body wasn't mine. Someone else died here. In this disaster. And somehow… I took their place.
Did I get Transmigrated?
Reincarnated?
Or Am I in a coma? Is this a dying dream?
Another explosion rocked the street.
I flinched, ducking instinctively as debris rained down.
The creature roared again. The cannon hero got swatted aside like a fly, crashing into a building.
This was too vivid to be a dream. And too painful to be a fake.
I stood, my legs shaking, unsteady.
My body felt strange. Not injured. Not weak.
Just… different.
Like it didn't quite fit right.
I clenched my fist.
And for just a second, the air around me trembled.
A pressure. It was subtle but undeniable.
I felt it in my chest. A well of something vast and untapped.
It was power. Absolutely raw and overwhelming. Waiting to be unleashed.
I opened my fist, and the sensation faded.
What was that?
The monster swung its drill arm. The green-haired hero barely dodged.
People were dying, and heroes were struggling.
And I was standing here, in someone else's body, in someone else's world, with no idea what to do.
But as I stood there, rain started to fall again, because of course it was raining. Soon, I made a decision.
I didn't know how I got here, and I didn't know why.
But I was here.
And I wasn't going to waste it.
I died saving someone.
And maybe I could do it again.
I took a step forward.
Then another.
Toward the chaos.
Toward whatever came next.
TO BE CONTINUED...