I woke up to light stabbing my eyes.
Not sunlight.
Artificial. White. Cold. The kind that hums against your skin and reminds you you're somewhere you shouldn't be.
My head feels heavy. My body feels… wrong.
I catch a reflection in the glass window and almost laugh. No—scratch that. I do laugh, though it sounds like I'm choking on disbelief.
Blond hair. Glittering eyes.
A mirror-polished smile that belongs to a boy I used to meme about online.
"Yuga Aoyama," I whisper, like saying it might undo the joke.
It doesn't.
The dorm smells faintly of hair gel and lavender deodorant. On the desk, there's a half-eaten slice of cake and a notebook with hearts on the cover. The handwriting is painfully flamboyant.
It's mine now.
My chest tightens as I lean back in the chair.
If this is a dream, it's too detailed. Too consistent.
If it's real…
Then I've been dropped into one of the most violent, hypocritical worlds ever written.
I laugh again, but quieter this time. "You've gotta be kidding me…"
---
First thing's first: test the quirk.
I hold out my hand, trying to imagine the pink laser beams Aoyama always flexed in the anime.
A second passes. Then another.
Nothing.
"Okay, maybe posture matters?" I joke to no one. I straighten up, channeling my inner anime protagonist.
"Naval Laser!"
The beam doesn't shoot from my hand.
It erupts from my stomach.
A flash of blinding light scorches the dirt outside the window. The recoil sends me flying backward into the wall.
My spine screams. My lungs burn. The air smells of ozone and cooked dust.
I can't help but grin through the pain.
"Holy hell… it hurts."
No cheat system. No tutorials. Just pain.
Just me, in a borrowed body, holding power that wants to tear me apart.
Maybe that's what makes it real.
---
I find a pen, flip open the heart-covered notebook, and start writing.
If this really is the world I think it is, then canon should unfold soon—Deku's quirkless arc, the sludge villain, All Might's debut, U.A. entrance exam.
That gives me time. Time to plan, time to figure out if this body can even survive long enough to matter.
Every breath feels like static running under my skin. Maybe that's what this quirk does—it shines too bright, eats you alive from the inside.
Poetic, in a messed-up way.
A light so beautiful it kills its owner.
That's Aoyama, isn't it?
I close the notebook and look out the window.
The world outside looks exactly as I remember it—clean, bright, too perfect.
But something about the skyline feels… off.
Like the story's already been rewritten, and I just haven't caught up yet.
---
Somewhere across the city, a man sits in a waiting room with his hands folded neatly on his lap.
Kairo Ren. Expelled from U.A. High.
The first student in decades to be publicly condemned by the Hero Public Safety Commission.
He looks calm, almost bored, like this is just another job interview.
> "So they finally kicked you out, huh, Ren?"
The memory plays behind his eyes like a bad rerun. A teacher—no, a former hero—standing at the gates, tone half-pity, half-contempt.
> "You had talent. Brains. The point system, the gambling tiers… even the slave hierarchy. You built a monster of a structure, and U.A. fed it. Did you ever think about the lives it ruined?"
Kairo had smiled, not from pride but from fatigue.
"People ruin themselves. I just gave them a scoreboard."
> "And the killing?"
"That was self-defense," he'd said simply. "Next time, I'll make sure it isn't."
---
The receptionist calls his name.
"Ren Kairo. Room three."
The room is plain—gray walls, one desk, two chairs.
A woman in a suit sits across from him, studying his file like she's reading his obituary.
"You've been blacklisted by every hero agency," she says. "And yet you applied to the Bounty Union. Why?"
"Because heroes need licenses," he replies. "Bounty hunters just need results."
"Your quirk?"
"Spatial Feedback. I can read motion, rhythm, and force before it happens. Helps with killing, not saving."
She nods slowly, taps something into her tablet.
"Boss wants to see you."
---
The elevator takes him up, each floor hums heavier than the last until it opens into a glass office that stretches across the skyline.
Silas waits by the window. Tall, lean, eyes like black glass.
He doesn't turn when he speaks. "You interest me, Kairo Ren. U.A. rejected you, but your system still shapes their entire internal economy. That takes genius—and audacity."
He slides a document across the table.
"Sign this. Become a contractor under the Union."
Kairo glances at it. "What makes you think I'll obey whatever's written here?"
Silas finally smiles, faint but dangerous.
"My quirk is called Agreement. When two or more parties sign a contract I witness, reality enforces it. If one side breaks it, something is taken in exchange."
"…And what's the price for lying?"
"Your soul, usually."
Kairo signs without hesitation. The ink glows for half a second, then fades.
Silas laughs softly. "Welcome aboard."
---
I stand under the moonlight, staring at my reflection in a puddle.
It's weird. I used to laugh at this character online. Now he's all I have.
I can still feel the soreness in my chest from earlier, where the laser almost caved my ribs in.
Each heartbeat sounds like a clock counting down to something I don't understand yet.
Maybe that's what being alive in this world means—every moment is borrowed time.
I exhale, watching the mist escape my lips.
"Alright, Yuga," I whisper to myself. "Let's make this body worth something."
The puddle ripples.
And in that warped reflection, my smile doesn't look like his anymore.