Prologue
When I opened my eyes, the first jolt of confusion hit me. I wasn't in the familiar environment of the room I shared with my sister, a space I knew by heart, with its usual mess and the light filtering through the window in a specific way. Instead, I found myself in a completely different room. It was moderately sized, painted in soft colors, and decorated in an unmistakably childish style, meant for a toddler, maybe two or three years old. The furniture was small and low, and there were scattered toys typical for that age.
The second and most alarming sign was the transformation of my own body. Looking at my hands, disbelief took over. They weren't my teenage hands. They were small, soft, and chubby—the hands of a baby, or at best, a two- or three-year-old. My body had shrunk drastically while I slept. A chill of panic began to creep up my spine.
Third, and in a twist that defied all logic, the room was dotted with Japanese text. It was a language that, in my previous life, I had studied with interest, though I was never fluent. However, focusing on the words, I read and understood them with minimal effort, as if the knowledge was deeply embedded in this new mind. This only intensified my astonishment and growing terror. The ultimate proof was hanging on the door: a small wooden sign. Upon reading it, my mind—that efficient traitor—translated it immediately: Katsuki no heya. "Katsuki's room." The name resonated with an unsettling familiarity. I couldn't help but rub my eyes with my new, tiny hands in a desperate attempt to dispel this absurd reality.
Fourth and final blow to my already battered sanity: suddenly and brutally, an avalanche of memories from a life that didn't belong to me, from someone else, from him, began to flood my consciousness. They were vivid, sensory memories—a complete childhood, beliefs, and habits that painfully merged with my own. After forcibly receiving and assimilating the torrent of experiences and personality that invaded my mind, I did the only thing my stunned, on-the-verge-of-breaking self could conceive.
I screamed. A heart-wrenching scream, full of panic, hysteria, and the pure denial of the impossible.
[TIME SKIP]
Weeks later, I was sitting under the shade of a tree, staring intently at the leaves swaying gently in the breeze. I watched them with an almost accusing intensity, as if the vibrant green was directly responsible for the cosmic mess that now inhabited my head.
"Stupid leaves," I muttered with childish resentment, feeling an absurd fury directed at the innocent flora. Seeing that my hateful glare didn't cause their magical disintegration or spontaneous combustion, I sighed with a mix of resignation and frustration. I still struggled to grasp the absurd hilarity of the situation; an irony so ridiculous that only he—the Katsuki Bakugo I knew from fiction—could have fully understood it.
When I woke up that morning, several weeks ago now, my first thought was that my mind was playing a sick joke on me, the stress of adult life, or something worse. The situation was too surreal and stupid to be taken seriously. So, after my "little" hysterical breakdown that fortunately no one seemed to notice, I resorted to the smartest solution my overloaded brain could come up with: I squeezed my eyes shut, tried to mentally rewind the last few minutes, and went back to sleep, hoping that when I woke up it would all have been a bad dream. Pretty smart, right?
Imagine my surprise, my horror, when I was awakened not by silence, but by a series of rhythmic, forceful shouts and knocks on the door, accompanied by the shrill, deep voice of a woman: "Get up, you're missing breakfast!"—a reminder that, in retrospect, was delivered with far less politeness than I just described. The core of the problem remained the same: I was in the body of Katsuki Bakugo.
Katsuki Bakugo. A fictional character. An explosive and iconic figure, created for the mass entertainment of thousands. A product of one man's imagination, meant to evoke emotions, entertain, and incidentally, line its creator's pockets with merchandise. But that, definitely, was a topic for another time, or perhaps never.
The main question, the one drilling into my head relentlessly, was: why the hell was I, an adult from another world, now embedded in the body of a rival from a damn shōnen anime?
After the initial shock and lingering disbelief, I made a purely pragmatic decision: survive the day. I would do it by blindly trusting the memories, instincts, and personality of this body's previous owner. As horrible, immoral, and metaphysically wrong as that sounded.
I didn't have much time to deliberate. My options dropped to zero when I heard Mitsuki Bakugo, this kid's mother, screaming from somewhere in the house with the force of an exhausted, exasperated mother who was undoubtedly ready for verbal violence. An icy chill ran through my body, but it wasn't just my fear: two distinct memories of an angry mother (my original one and Katsuki's) invaded my mind at the same time, amplifying the terror.
So I did the most sensible thing a three-year-old's body could do in the face of such a threat: I ran. I ran as if All For One himself, with his destroying hands, was chasing me. My goal was to grab my clothes as fast as possible, get dressed, and make it to the table for the breakfast my "lovely" mother had prepared before her patience ran out.
As expected, that first day was a hectic, confusing, and emotionally draining whirlwind. After assimilating the new memories, fighting off contradictory thoughts, and debating the moral doubts swirling in my head, I reached an inescapable conclusion. I was, magically or inexplicably scientifically, in the body of young Katsuki Bakugo, a kid with a set of very, very questionable beliefs and actions. Basically, a top-tier idiot and hypocrite in the original canon.
Great. Needless to say, I wasn't happy with this life arrangement. Yes, the latent explosion powers were undeniably incredible and cool to imagine, but they weren't worth the cost of losing everything I knew, loved, and respected from my original life. Furthermore, there was an unbearably heavy moral dilemma: I had "stolen" the body of a three-year-old, intentionally or not. It was a horrific situation, a usurpation I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
Although the original Katsuki wasn't a character I particularly liked in fiction, the problem was that his absence meant I was alive, and that, unintentionally, I had committed usurpation, soul displacement, or something infinitely worse. A true disaster of cosmic proportions.
I wanted to scream at the whole world. I wanted to scold whatever entity, god, or force of destiny found it amusing to shove me into this body without anyone's consent.
I let out another sigh, a sound of pure frustration that felt far too adult for the tiny body making it. This is bullshit, I thought, feeling the weight of despair.
Then, I heard someone shout my name.
I rolled my eyes, genuinely annoyed by the interruption of my moment of self-pity under the tree. The source of the call was none other than a green-haired boy. I turned to look at him, a bit irritated by the disruption of my brief moment of relaxation.
"Izuku Midoriya," I said, almost spitting the name, though the tone came out lower and less aggressive than Katsuki's memory intended.
That was the full name of the little nuisance running towards me, a million-volt smile lighting up his freckled face.
"Kacchaaaan! Kacchaan! Katsuki!" the broccoli-haired boy cheered happily, waving his little arms.
I sighed, allowing a tone of sarcasm to slip into my response, a glimpse of my original personality:
"That's my name, don't wear it out, Izu."
The brat looked at me with momentary confusion, but immediately brushed off the unusual comment. He was too excited.
"Kacchan, there's a new All Might figure at the store! Everyone else is there!" Izuku said, pointing enthusiastically toward a nearby shop where several small children were already glued to the toy display.
I rolled my eyes, but a tiny, genuine smile slipped onto my lips. I nodded calmly.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Lead the way, Izu," I replied, feeling a mix of amusement at his enthusiasm and slight annoyance that he had interrupted me under the tree.
The future heir of All Might, without needing to know it, squealed with joy, his face radiant, and started running full speed toward the store.
I shook my head at Izuku's hyperactive antics. He certainly was an energetic kid, adorably annoying and full of light.
Well, it didn't matter how I got here, or why. Maybe, if I was trapped in this body and this world, I could do something good. Maybe I could use this unexpected opportunity to change things, to do some good that the original Katsuki might not have done.
I watched Izuku Midoriya run, the little green-haired figure jumping and gesturing. I clenched my fist with a budding determination. Even though I hadn't asked to be here, and even though I hated the situation, I would do my best. I would do everything in my power to protect the happiness of this freckled little brat and the (relative) peace of this place. It was the least I could do for the original Katsuki Bakugo, whose body and life I had usurped. I owed him that.
I promise: I won't give up. Not only will I stay, but I'll help you kick All For One's ass, I swore in my mind to the small, euphoric green-haired figure already waiting for me at the store's door. I'll use this hell of a situation to do something good.
Author's Note: Look, English isn't my first language—I don't even have a great grasp of it—so if you find any spelling mistakes, blame the AI and Google Translate.
Well, hello again. Life really hit me here and there. Despite all the trouble I had paying for my surgery, I was finally able to book a date for it. Since I have some free time now, I decided to rewrite this fic because I want to improve it. I realized that as time went on, the writing quality of the story dropped significantly, and since I was making it up as I went along, I kept adding plot holes without even realizing they were there—a mistake on my part as a novice writer. I want to re-upload the whole thing completely rewritten.