While Hakuji was carving a statue and before he watched the 9 o’clock news...
“You!!! Can become a Hero!”
“Aaaaaah!!!”
Midoriya could not stop the tears after hearing those words from his idol, the Symbol of Peace, All Might.
The relief that all the effort he had put in until now had not been in vain, and the overwhelming feeling that he had finally been rewarded, wrapped around him.
But the shock did not end there.
After that, Midoriya heard all sorts of things from the skeletal-looking All Might.
About a sacred power with absolute strength that he would inherit.
About [One For All]...
Midoriya could only stand there with his mouth hanging open, stunned by information so shocking it felt like his head might explode.
“Now then, first we need to prepare a vessel for [One For All]...”
As he watched Midoriya wipe away his tears and get up from the road, All Might had all kinds of thoughts.
If this boy was frail, then making him a vessel for [One For All] would truly be difficult.
But if he was the boy he had chosen as his successor, then he should be able to endure it. Holding onto that expectation, All Might looked at Midoriya more closely.
“Hmm...”
All Might was a man who had reached the realm of the greatest Hero.
Just by glancing at someone, he could tell whether they were strong or weak.
And yet...
“......Hm...”
“M-Midoriya boy?”
“Hng... yes?”
“Do you do any exercise?”
“Ah... yes, I do some with a friend.”
He realized something was strange.
“C-come here for a moment.”
“Huh?”
“COME here!”
“Wah!”
All Might suddenly lunged at Midoriya and, in an instant, started feeling him all over.
“W-what is this steel-like lower body!!”
He pressed hard on Midoriya’s thighs and calves, only for the fingers of the hand doing the pressing to bounce back from the springy muscle packed beneath.
“These erector spinae and abs!! They’re like springs!”
Shaking Midoriya by the shoulders, he marveled again at the waist as solid as a log.
“Your biceps! Show me your biceps! ...They’re excellent!!!”
He had clearly looked ordinary and skinny in his school uniform, but even All Might had never imagined that such a ridiculously trained body was hidden underneath.
“And come to think of it, even when he was hanging onto me, he was strangely strong...”
Even though he had slowed down a little, the fact that Midoriya had clung to the leg of All Might as he leaped through the air meant his grip strength was truly outstanding.
“W-why are you doing this, All Might...?”
“Did you build these muscles all by yourself, Midoriya boy?”
“Huh?”
“No more question marks! Midoriya boy! Answer, please!!!”
If he had built this level of muscle through training alone, or if he had been born Quirkless with a body like this, then for All Might it would be a real jackpot.
More like winning first prize in the lottery.
At this level, he was almost on par with the third-year U.A. boys currently out on practical training!
It was practically a quasi-Hero body.
“W-well, like I said earlier, I did learn exercise from a friend...”
“A friend!? A frieeend!?”
“Yes. His name is Hakuji, and he’s been helping me with my training for a few years now.”
“Then what about your schedule, your training menu, things like that?”
“Hakuji-kun handles all of it...”
All Might could only let out a small breath at the disappointing fact that Midoriya had not built it all by himself.
Even so...
“That friend of yours is quite the amazing friend, Midoriya boy!!”
“Hakuji-kun really is pretty amazing...”
“No, this isn’t something to brush off so lightly. That boy Hakuji has trained your body right up to the very limit of its limit.
And only with ‘ultra-practical compressed muscle’ at that!!”
Even All Might thought this was an incredible feat.
In artistic terms, it was like taking a street pebble that nobody had paid attention to and turning it into a statue worthy of Da Vinci.
“At this point... it’s truly the height of artistry. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say it was made by a master who spent a hundred years on self-training!”
All Might, who had no idea that the culprit was actually an Oni who had spent 140 years on self-training, had somehow landed on the right answer, but that was not the issue right now.
“Huff...! Huff...!!”
“A-are you all right?”
“I-I’m fine... I just got a little excited...”
All Might, who had gotten so excited he was practically spitting blood, went off to the drain for a moment, coughed up a lot of blood, wiped his mouth, and continued.
“Midoriya boy. The succession itself could be done immediately without any problem, but... I have some preparations to make too, so give me about a week. And then, if you’re still willing after that week...
I’d like to meet that boy Hakuji as well.”
All Might had already marked Midoriya as his successor, but he was curious too.
What kind of middle school third-year could possibly have built a body like that?
And just how strong that boy would be.
All Might did not know.
That there was a third-year middle schooler out there carving granite with his bare hands and creating sonic booms...
“...You live in a place like this?”
“Yes.”
A week later, Midoriya, who had only told Hakuji that he had someone he wanted to introduce, arrived at Sagiri Mountain with All Might.
“.........”
Caw! Caw!!
Black crows flew through the sky, and the mountain entrance was such a dark, gloomy place that it almost felt like the mouth of an Oni had opened wide.
“Uh, um... ......!!!!!”
“Hey, Izuku. What are you doing?”
All Might in his true form was still reeling from the fact that a student lived in a mountain like this, but then he sensed something, lifted his chin, and looked up sharply.
“Ah, Hakuji-kun!”
“So this is the guest who wanted to make an offering at the shrine?”
“Ah, yeah. So... um. Your name was...”
“You can call me Yagi.”
“It’s Yagi-san!”
As Midoriya smiled and chatted with Hakuji at the voice from behind him, All Might stared at Hakuji with wide-open eyes.
“......Strong!”
He had expected a body even more developed than Midoriya’s beneath those clothes like a training uniform, but this was beyond imagination.
It was almost as if, if you compressed a gigantic monster down into a 170-centimeter body and then compressed it again, that kind of aura would start to linger around him.
‘I don’t know what kind of Quirk it is, but this is at the level where he just feels biologically different...’
“Yagi-san! Over here!”
“...Right, coming. So you’re Hakuji-kun, then? Nice to meet you.”
“Yes.”
As All Might slowly walked over at Midoriya’s call, he and Hakuji briefly met eyes.
‘Huh? What was that? For a second... it looked like that boy’s eyes turned yellow.’
At the strange sensation, All Might rubbed his eyes and looked again, but Hakuji’s gaze was blue, not yellow.
“...What a strange boy.”
As All Might climbed the shrine stairs reserved for visitors, he kept looking at Hakuji’s back.
Even as he took five ten-thousand-yen bills out of his wallet and placed them in the offering box, and tucked the health charm Hakuji’s mother had given him into his pocket, he kept glancing back at Hakuji from time to time.
For some reason, he kept getting the intuitive feeling that Hakuji was hiding something more than just being a strong middle schooler.
“Izuku, Yagi-san. Please come in for a cup of tea.”
“I’d love to, but is that all right for you, Yagi-san?”
“Hmm, I think I should be fine today. I’ll impose a little too.”
And so All Might and Midoriya sat awkwardly on their knees while drinking the matcha Hakuji had personally prepared.
“.........”
“.........”
“.........”
None of the three said a word as they sipped their tea.
Midoriya only let his eyes sparkle with emotion at the fact that he and All Might were drinking tea together.
All Might kept glancing sideways between Hakuji and Midoriya while drinking.
Hakuji simply drank his tea in silence.
In the end, with the atmosphere unbearably awkward, All Might, who was naturally and professionally fond of talking, opened his mouth first.
“A-hem. Hakuji boy. Is exercise your hobby?”
“Yes, training is my hobby.”
“I see, yes, that does seem to be the case.”
Taking another sip of tea, All Might looked at Hakuji with sharp eyes and decided to test him a little.
“Haha. I’m a bit weak myself, you see. When I saw Midoriya boy on the road, I really thought he was amazing. So I came to see if I might learn a thing or two.”
“I don’t think I have much to teach you, [All Might].”
“Haha, yes, even so, I am the Symbol of Pea... huh?”
.........
For a moment, the only sound in the room was Hakuji sipping his tea.
“N-now, hold on, I think there’s been some misunderstanding. I’m just a man named Yagi, and I have absolutely nothing to do with All Might—”
“Ah.”
All Might, whose true form had suddenly been exposed, immediately tried to make an excuse, but at Midoriya’s “Ah,” he widened his eyes.
At that sound, All Might grabbed Midoriya and dragged him to a corner of the room, whispering very, very quietly.
“M-M-Midoriya boy! You didn’t tell him who I am, did you!? I trusted you!!”
“N-no, that’s not it... I just remembered that Hakuji-kun can tell how strong a person is...”
“WHAT!!? You should have said that earlier!!!”
All Might’s face went pale. He had assumed that, seeing such a trained body, Hakuji must have a combat-type Quirk, and never imagined it might be a detection-type Quirk instead.
“So, what brings you to our shrine, All Might?”
“.................”
And when Hakuji spoke again, All Might realized he had not been mistaken.
Hakuji’s sclera were blue, and his pupils were dyed yellow.
Like...
All Might found himself thinking, without meaning to, that those were the eyes of an Oni.
tmi.
1. The binge update is complete!! Let’s go win!!!!
2. All Might, the Hero among Heroes, has come face-to-face with Upper Rank Three. What will become of him?
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