The first thing Katzo noticed was the beeping.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
His eyelids felt like lead. The world was a blur of white and fluorescent light. A hospital. He knew that smell — antiseptic, stale air, faint sweat.
Wait. Why do I know that smell?
Then the memories hit him like a second truck.
College. Manga. Late nights reading My Hero Academia fan theories. The truck — no, Truck-kun — and then a meteor. Two meteors. Who even gets hit by two meteors?
He should be dead. He was dead.
But here he was, small, weak, and lying in a hospital bed with tubes in his arm.
A nurse noticed his open eyes and rushed over. "You're awake! Oh, thank goodness. Can you tell me your name?"
He opened his mouth. "Ka..." He stopped. That wasn't his name. His name was... what? His old name felt distant, like a character from a book he'd read years ago.
But another name surfaced. Katzo.
"Katzo," he said, voice tiny. Four years old. I'm four years old.
The nurse smiled. "That's right. You're a very brave boy, Katzo."
Over the next few hours — or maybe days, time was slippery — he pieced it together. His guardian had died in a car crash. He'd survived with bruises and a head injury. The doctors said he'd lost his memory.
Good cover, he thought. I lost someone else's memories. Mine are perfectly intact.
He remembered everything: quirks, villains, All Might, One For All, All For One. He remembered that he was living in a manga world now. He remembered that Bakugo Katsuki and Midoriya Izuku were his neighbors.
Neighbors, he thought, and then a social worker came in with two families.
Mitsuki Bakugo was loud, brash, and crying. "The kid's got no one? He's staying with us. End of discussion."
Inko Midoriya was softer, tearful, holding a small green-haired boy's hand. "We live right next door. We can both take care of him. Please."
The social worker explained something about joint adoption, weekly rotations, legal paperwork. Katzo barely listened. He was staring at two four-year-olds peeking from behind their mothers.
Blonde, red-eyed, already scowling: Bakugo Katsuki.
Green, freckled, wide-eyed: Midoriya Izuku.
They're so small, Katzo thought. They're going to explode things and break their bones someday. Right now they look like they're scared of me.
Izuku whispered, "Do you... remember us?"
Katzo could have said no. He could have played the amnesiac orphan card and kept his distance. But his personality — 90% playful, 10% serious — had already survived reincarnation.
He tilted his head, pretended to think, then grinned.
"Nope! But you look fun. Wanna be friends again?"
Katsuki snorted. "Tch. You were already my friend, dummy. I don't need to ask."
Izuku's eyes welled up with tears. "O-okay!"
And just like that, Katzo's second life began.
---
Later that night, alone in his hospital bed, the HUD appeared.
A translucent blue screen flickered in the corner of his vision.
[SYSTEM ONLINE]
User: Katzo
Quirk: Copy (Mutation: 99%)
Current copies: 0
He blinked. The HUD didn't go away.
Oh no, he thought, but he was smiling. Oh yes.