I sat under a streetlight and squinted at my ID, trying to make out the characters of my home address.
Musutafu City, District 7, Building 3-C, Unit 402.
Musutafu. It's the same city where UA was located.
The same city where canon would unfold.
I was in the heart of it all. Great.
I started walking. No money for a train. The wallet had been empty except for the ID and a single crumpled receipt from a convenience store dated three days ago.
The streets were quieter now. Most people had evacuated the area after the disaster. Police barriers blocked off sections. News crews packed up their equipment.
I kept my head down and walked.
Now that I got to know about my unique, unhinged power, my body felt strange with every step. Lighter than it should be. Like gravity was optional. I had to concentrate just to walk normally—to not accidentally launch myself forward with too much force.
Control.
That was going to be the problem.
Saitama never had to worry about control because he'd trained for three years. Built up to that power gradually.
I just… woke up with it.
No training. No gradual increase.
Just raw, overwhelming strength that could accidentally kill someone if I wasn't careful.
I thought about the monster. How its arm disintegrated and how it flew through a building.
I'd been trying to hold back.
That was me holding back.
What happens if I don't?
I'd probably—
I pushed the thought away with an imaginary spinning kick.
C'mon, let's tackle one problem at a time.
Forty Minutes Later - Musutafu City
Building 3-C was old.
Not charmingly old. Just… worn down. Cracked concrete and rust stains on the railings. Flickering hallway lights that buzzed like dying insects.
I climbed the stairs slowly, carefully, to the fourth floor.
Unit 402.
The door was dented and scratched in all places. The paint too peeled in long strips.
I stood there, hand raised to knock.
But then I stopped.
What if someone's inside?
What if this body—Kaito—had family?
What do I say?
"I'm not your son/brother/whoever, I'm actually a dead guy from another world who took over this body and now wants to play family?"
Yeah. That'd go well.
I reached into the pocket again and found a key attached to the wallet by a fraying string.
I unlocked the door and it opened with a creak.
Inside was darkness.
I fumbled for a light switch and found it. Then, I flicked it.
Nothing. The power was out.
Of course I'm dirt poor here as well, right?
Moonlight filtered through a small window, casting everything in shades of gray.
The apartment was tiny. One room. A kitchenette in the corner with a hot plate and a mini-fridge. A futon rolled up against the wall. A low table with a few papers scattered on it.
And a girl.
She sat in the corner, knees pulled to her chest, eyes wide. We stared at each other.
She looked young. Maybe ten or eleven. Brown hair pulled into a messy ponytail. An oversized hoodie that probably belonged to—
To Kaito.
To me.
"Nii-san?" she whispered.
My throat tightened.
Nii-san. I.e. Big brother.
She thinks I'm him.
I am him. Aren't I?
Well, at least I have a sister again.
I stepped inside and closed the door.
"Yeah," I said quietly. "It's me."
She burst into tears.
She was across the room in seconds, crashing into me, arms wrapping around my waist.
"I thought you were dead!" she sobbed into my chest. "The news said there was a disaster. A villain attack and you weren't answering your phone. I waited and waited and—"
Her words dissolved into crying. I stood there, frozen.
This girl.
She loved Kaito.
The person I replaced.
And now I had to pretend to be him.
Slowly, carefully, I put a hand on her head.
"I'm okay," I said. "I'm here."
She cried harder.
I stood there in the dark, holding a little girl who thought I was her brother, and felt like the worst kind of impostor.
An Hour Later
Her name was Hana.
She told me between sniffles and hiccups as I made tea on the hot plate using bottled water. The power company had cut the electricity two weeks ago. It was unpaid bills.
Hmm... I knew it.
Hana sat at the table, wrapped in a blanket, watching me with red-rimmed eyes.
"The landlord came by again," she said quietly. "He said if we don't pay by the end of the month, he'll kick us out."
I handed her the tea. "How much do we owe?"
"Fifty thousand yen. For three months."
I did the math and it was about three hundred fifty dollars.
Not much. But for two kids living alone? Might as well be a million.
"I've been doing what I can," Hana continued. "I help at the convenience store after school. Stocking shelves. They pay me under the table. But it's not enough."
I looked around the apartment again.
The peeling walls and the bare shelves. The absence of anything not strictly necessary.
Real, grinding, desperate poverty.
"Where are our parents?" I asked carefully.
Hana's face darkened. "You know where."
I waited and stared into blank.
Did I fuck up?
She stared into her tea. "They left. Eight months ago. Said they couldn't handle it anymore. The bills. The stress. Having a quirkless son and an adopted daughter."
She said 'quirkless' like a curse.
"Mom cried," Hana whispered. "But she still left."
Quirkless.
Kaito had been quirkless.
In a world where 80% of people had powers, being quirkless was like being disabled. You would be discriminated against and seen as lesser.
And his parents abandoned him because of it.
Left him to take care of a little girl who wasn't even blood-related.
My hands tightened around my own cup.
The ceramic cracked. Just a little.
Hana didn't notice.
"We'll figure it out," I said. Trying to sound confident. Like Kaito would have.
She looked up at me. "You always say that."
"Because it's true."
She smiled. Small and Sad.
"I'm glad you're okay, Nii-san."
I'm not your Nii-san, I wanted to say.
He died in that disaster.
I'm just wearing his face.
But I didn't.
Instead, I said, "Me too."
Later That Night
Hana fell asleep on the futon.
I sat by the window, looking out at the city.
Musutafu at night. Lights scattered like stars. The distant glow of hero agencies on patrol.
I'd read Kaito's life in that one conversation.
He was abandoned, quirkless.
Just like me in my old world.
Working multiple jobs and supporting a younger sibling. Fighting just to survive.
Different worlds and same story.
Why?
Why give me this body? This life? Like there could be so many more transmigration options.
Was it random? Fate? Cosmic joke that only gods understood?
I looked at my hands.
These hands that could shatter steel and belonged to a boy with no power at all.
How did this happen?
Kaito was quirkless. Everyone knew it. It was probably in his school records, medical files, everything.
Then he died and I woke up in his body.
With powers that shouldn't exist. Powers that could level mountains.
Did I cause this?
Did me taking over his body somehow give it power?
Or was this always meant to happen?
I didn't have answers. Just questions.
And a sleeping girl in the next room who depended on me—on Kaito—to survive.
I stood and walked to the center of the small room.
Took a breath. I needed to test this. Figure out what I could do.
Carefully.
I made a fist and concentrated.
Less power. Control. Like… like turning down a dial.
I punched the air.
Slowly and gently.
The wind pressure shattered the window.
Glass exploded outward into the night.
I froze. Hana stirred but didn't wake.
I stared at the broken window.
I barely moved.
That was me trying to hold back.
This was going to be a problem. A massive problem.
The Next Morning
I woke to Hana shaking my shoulder.
"Nii-san. School."
I blinked. "What?"
"You have school. Eisei Junior High. Remember?"
Oh, Right. Kaito was a student.
Which meant I was a student.
I groaned and sat up. My back didn't hurt. My neck wasn't stiff. In my old life, sleeping on a floor would've crippled me.
Now? Nothing.
Perks of a superhuman body.
Hana handed me a uniform. "It's wrinkled. Sorry. I tried ironing it, but the iron broke last month."
"It's fine."
I dressed quickly. The uniform was worn but clean. Hana had taken care of it.
She handed me a small bag. "Lunch. Just rice and pickles. I'm sorry—"
"It's perfect," I said. And meant it.
She smiled.
I left the apartment with a promise to be back by evening.
The school was a fifteen-minute walk.
Eisei Junior High. A plain building. Nothing special.
Students filtered through the gates in groups. Some talking. Some laughing. Some showing off their Quirks—stretchy fingers, floating objects, color-changing hair.
But I walked alone. Invisible.
Like just another face in the crowd.
Good. I'll continue to be a background character. Because I needed time to think. To plan.
UA's entrance exam was in three months.
I had to register. Had to come up with a Quirk name that made sense.
Something that wouldn't draw too much attention.
Strength Quirk? Too generic and wouldn't explain my insane speed.
Pressure Quirk? Closer.
Impact Quirk?
I'd have to be careful. If I registered as too powerful, people would ask questions and want demonstrations.
I couldn't afford that. At least, not yet.
The bell rang.
I found my classroom—Class 3-B—and slipped into a seat in the back.
The teacher droned on about heroics theory. About famous Quirks. About the importance of control and responsibility.
I stared out the window.
Thinking about a power I didn't understand.
Lunchtime – Rooftop
I sat alone.
Eating rice and pickles.
Watching the city.
My phone buzzed.
Wait.
I had a phone?
I pulled it out. Old model. Cracked screen. But felt somewhat reinforced.
One new message.
Unknown Number: "Kaito. It's been a while. Heard you're still alive. Impressive. Let's talk. -M"
I stared.
Who was M?
Michael Jackson?
Another message appeared.
"Meet me after school. The old training ground. You know where."
I didn't know where. But Kaito did.
His memories weren't mine. But maybe, just maybe, if I thought hard enough—
An image flashed. A vacant lot. Rusted playground equipment, near the docks.
How did I know that?
I looked at the message again.
This could be a trap.
Or it could be someone who knew Kaito. Someone who might have answers.
I texted back: "Fine."
The reply was immediate.
"Don't be late."
I pocketed the phone and stared at the city again.
Three months until UA. One day since I arrived.
And already, things were getting complicated.
I took another bite of rice and wondered what Kaito had gotten himself into before he died.
TO BE CONTINUED...