First, let’s sort out what I’ve learned.
First of all.
This world is insane.
Everything here is like a demon.
When I looked outside, there were swarms of demon-like things that were perfectly fine even under the sunlight.
If there’s a hellscape where this one and that one are all running around using Blood Demon Arts, then this has to be that world.
The ridiculous part is that this is the norm.
Not Blood Demon Art, but something called a Quirk—everyone and their dog is running around using powers.
Well, I guess that makes sense.
There’s no way everything walking around under the sun is actually a demon.
And that includes me, thinking this way.
My name is Hakuji.
My family name is Soyama.
I am Soyama Hakuji.
Strangely enough, I was born with the exact same name I had in my previous life.
Previous life.
My previous life...
The memories of Hakuji from my past life, and of Akaza as well, are all burned into my mind and won’t leave.
And so is my final meeting with Koyuki.
I thought my father and master were just the kind of self-comfort the brain creates right before death, but my meeting with Koyuki was so vivid I could never forget it, no matter how hard I tried.
There were two main things Koyuki told me.
Become a [Hero]. And come to a place called [U.A.]...
I still don’t know what those words mean.
Hero... U.A.
I understood that she was talking about some kind of position and some kind of place, but I need to know what they are if I’m ever going to meet Koyuki again.
What on earth are those things?
“Hee-ro... U-ee... no, hee--ryo chu... yu... chue-yu~ e...”
Throb
A vein bulged on Hakuji’s forehead as he muttered to himself.
“Th-this stupid mouth won’t even say it right!”
Hakuji finally snapped after desperately practicing the pronunciation of everything Koyuki had told him.
For the record, what he had just said meant:
“This stupid mouth won’t even say it right!!”
That’s right.
Hakuji was just a little over two years old.
He was at the age where he still couldn’t speak properly and only babbled nonsense.
With nothing but a pathetic lisp every time he tried to talk, there was only one thing Hakuji could do.
Paf paf paf!!
Take out his frustration by pounding the cushioned floor of the nursery.
“Oh my, what’s got our little boy so upset~?”
The person who opened the nursery door and came in as if he were used to the sound was a tall man who looked very much like Hakuji.
Of course, it was Hakuji’s father, Hanjiro.
“......”
“What’s got you so worked up, hmm?”
If this had been the Hakuji from his days as Upper Rank Three, he would have punched the man so hard his head would have burst right there on the spot.
“N-nothin’.”
But Hakuji simply couldn’t get angry in front of this man. All he could do was answer sulkily.
He was no longer a demon who beat people and Demon Slayers to death for training.
And he couldn’t bring himself to say anything to this man, who looked so much like his father from his previous life.
“Hmm...”
“......”
“Well! You’re cute, so I guess that’s fine!”
Hanjiro stared at Hakuji for a long moment, then rubbed his bearded face against Hakuji’s still-soft cheeks.
“Eek. Eeeek! S-stop! I hate it!”
Hakuji was utterly flustered by his father’s sudden attack of affection.
“Say ‘Daddy, I love you~’ and I’ll let you go~”
“Eeeek!!”
For Hakuji, a human in his previous life and a demon for another roughly 150 years combined, there was no greater humiliation than this.
He struggled for what felt like forever to escape Hanjiro’s assault, when Hanjiro suddenly seemed to remember something and lifted his son up with a bright expression.
“Hey, kiddo. Wanna see a hero?”
“...Huh?”
“Yeah, yeah. There’s this video that’s super popular lately~ It’s sooo cool, so Dad came to show it to you.”
If this had been normal, he would have refused or run away, but at the word “hero” that came out of his father’s mouth—no, at the word Hero—Hakuji’s eyes flew wide open.
“Hee-ro?”
“Yep! Hero!”
So that was it. That was the pronunciation she’d meant. Could it be... that it was a common profession?
Hakuji was dumbfounded as one of the riddles Koyuki had left him suddenly appeared from an unexpected mouth.
“Now, now, your mom doesn’t like showing you stuff like this, so we’re watching it in secret!”
Hakuji’s mother was out shopping at the moment.
Since she strongly disliked violence, she hadn’t taught Hakuji anything about Villains and Heroes even now that he was two.
Especially since hero highlight videos were guaranteed to include violence, she had planned not to show him any until he was a little older. But fathers are the sort of creatures who want to do the very thing they’re told not to do.
“I-I wanna see hee-ro! Wanna see hee-ro!”
Especially when their son was this excited.
Hakuji didn’t want to say it with this baby mouth of his, but he couldn’t bear to lose the clue he’d finally found.
“Yep, yep! Let’s watch!”
Beep
Hanjiro naturally sat Hakuji on his lap and pulled out his smartphone, holding it up in front of him.
And what appeared first was...
[It’s okay now!!!]
A gigantic, muscle-bound man in blue.
[Why, you ask!!?]
The words he shouted with confidence and certainty.
[Because! I have arrived!!!]
What Hakuji saw on that screen was a huge man unlike anyone he had ever seen in either this life or the last.
Hakuji, who had fought in countless battles, could tell.
That was not a body swollen by becoming a demon, nor something flimsy like a Blood Demon Art—or a Quirk.
It was surely a perfect body forged through blood-spitting effort.
In an instant, Hakuji was completely absorbed by the video.
Every movement of the man on screen.
[Texas Smash!!!]
The countless forces and surging muscles packed into a single punch.
And then.
[Boom!!!]
[D-did you just see that, everyone!! Our hero All Might has eliminated the cyclone!!]
A fist with power beyond common sense, power that could even alter the weather.
[Carolina~~ Smash!!!]
With a casually swung blow, he destroyed a massive vehicle—the terrorists’ armored car.
What was contained in that body?
That unimaginable power within it.
The countless experiences he had accumulated.
Even though only the tiniest fraction of all that was captured in the video, it was enough to captivate Hakuji’s eyes.
“......With one strike, that fist can change the weather. And that perfected body... it looks absurdly hard. No attack would work on it.”
The blond man in the video was taking every attack from the ferocious, demon-like villains with his body and knocking them all down in a single blow.
[All Might! All Might!!!]
“All Might. Is that man’s name?”
Countless people in the video were chanting All Might’s name.
“See? Cool, right? It’s a compilation of All Might’s greatest moments!”
“...Yeah.”
Even Hakuji had no choice but to admit it.
If he still had the power of a demon, he would have wanted to become someone like that. All Might was overwhelming.
But Hakuji still didn’t understand why his father had shown him All Might while saying he was showing him a hero.
“...What’s a hero?”
“Hm? Oh, I guess Hakuji doesn’t know. A hero is...”
Hakuji muttered without thinking, and Hanjiro, hearing him, answered with a smile.
“It’s about saving people, and saving them again!
It’s work that makes everyone happy!”
To Hanjiro, a hero was not someone who fought Villains.
A hero was someone who saved everyone.
For Villains, a chance to reform. For citizens, peace and happiness.
That, Hanjiro—who had once dreamed of becoming a Pro Hero—believed, was the true duty of a hero.
“...Huh? Huh!? H-hey, why are you crying! Huh!? Was the video scary!?”
But to Hakuji, those words sounded very different.
No.
They were so similar to words he had heard long ago that tears had begun to spill out before he even realized it.
“Whatever you do, everyone starts out like a newborn baby.
You learn by receiving help from those around you.
Don’t keep trying to compare yourself to others.
The one you should always fight is yourself.
What matters is becoming stronger than the you of yesterday.
If you can keep that up for ten years, twenty years, and beyond, then there’s nothing more to say—it’s wonderful.
And then...
it’s your turn to help people.”
Ah.
Now I understand.
Why Koyuki told me to become a hero.
Why the words “save others” cut so deeply into my heart.
Why the memories of being a demon still remain whole inside me.
Hakuji’s small fingers, for the first time since being born into this life, clenched together with firm resolve and formed a tiny fist.
With this fist.
With these hands that had slaughtered so many.
With these bloodstained hands.
She was telling me to save others.
For every life I took, and for every life I failed to protect.
This time, she was telling me to protect them.
It was a promise.
Across past life and present life.
Hakuji and Koyuki had made a new vow that transcended time and space.
This time, clench your fist for saving people.
From the tips of Hakuji’s nails, a blue color began to spread, slowly dyeing his fingers completely blue like a tattoo.
The mark of a demon began to appear on Hakuji’s clenched right hand.
“So this is my punishment.”
Hakuji smiled faintly as he looked at his blue-stained fingers.
Like a criminal’s tattoo, it clung to his soul and would never leave. Hakuji smiled at that.
This tattoo would always whisper that he was a sinner.
“Whatever it is, whatever kind of thing it is, whatever punishment it may be, I’ll bear it.”
If it meant meeting Koyuki again.
I can do anything.
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