A so-called superhuman society, where 80 percent of humanity is born with supernatural abilities known as Quirks.
With each passing generation, Quirks grew more varied and complex, becoming woven into our everyday lives as part of the human body’s functions.
But because of that, those born without a Quirk in this superhuman society were called Quirkless and often looked down upon.
Bullying using Quirks.
After entering middle school, that sort of direct bullying had decreased considerably, but...
The memories of my childhood, when I first realized that I was different from everyone else, had taken deep root within my heart.
What would it have been like if I’d had a Quirk like everyone else?
I was utterly exhausted even from thinking things like that anymore.
But even so, if I had possessed some kind of Quirk, wouldn’t I be living a very different life right now?
‘For example, I could avoid the car speeding toward me right now...’
Screeeech!!! Crash!!!
"Guhk!!!"
An impact more violent than anything I had ever felt before.
By the time I came to my senses, I had already been flung several meters down the road along with fragments of the car.
The two arms I had instinctively raised in front of myself when the car struck me must have been completely broken, because I couldn’t feel them at all.
"Someone’s been hit!!!"
"Call an ambulance, now!!! Hurry!!!"
‘So noisy...’
People were shouting at the top of their lungs toward where I had fallen.
Their voices made my head throb as though it were splitting apart, and my eyes naturally squeezed shut.
‘...Is this how I die...’
For some reason, my parents’ faces flickered before my eyes.
Was this the life-flashing-before-your-eyes phenomenon I had only heard about? Like rewinding a film reel, the days I had lived so far floated before my eyes from a third-person perspective.
A photograph from the day of my middle school entrance ceremony, taken with my parents.
My father boisterously shouting in front of our relatives that I had scored a hundred on every test.
Even the image of the teacher who helped me every time I was bullied.
Looking at it all again like this, perhaps my life had not been so bad after all.
But as the life review continued afterward, all I could do was curse inwardly in place of my mouth, which could no longer move.
‘Damn it...’
"It’s okay, Ryusuke... Even without a Quirk, you can become a wonderful person. Your father and I both have jobs that have nothing to do with Quirks too, don’t we?"
"Mom..."
"It’s okay... It’s okay, Ryusuke..."
The day I was declared Quirkless at the hospital. My mother had comforted me as I cried alone in my room.
Yet even as she comforted me, I could vividly remember the expression on her face as she desperately held back tears, and the feeling of her hands as she barely managed to suppress their trembling while holding me.
To think that my final memory in life would be one that left such a bitter taste in my mouth.
With a bitter smile at my own situation, I slowly began lowering my eyelids, which had become far too heavy.
"Mom... Dad... I’m sorry..."
I no longer had the strength left to stay conscious.
I could barely even hear the voices calling out to me from around me.
If even this hazy consciousness were to cut out, I would die completely.
And yet, for some reason, the film reel of my life review continued to unspool without stopping.
‘Th... this is...’
The film of memories kept rolling past the moment I emerged from my mother’s womb and burst into tears for the first time.
And before I knew it, it was showing me a man I had never seen before.
Just as it had shown me a moment ago.
His daily life played out as though time were rewinding.
Everything in that life felt incredibly strange to me, yet somehow familiar at the same time.
‘Quirkless?’
Come to think of it, I had never once seen this man use a Quirk in his memories.
Just like me, he merely spent each day among other people.
Did that mean this man had been Quirkless, just like me?
‘No... That’s not it...’
The source of that strange sense of incongruity I had continually felt while watching his memories.
It did not take me long to realize it.
There were no Quirks.
Not in anyone in that world, including him.
It was not merely a matter of being Quirkless, or having no Quirk.
Those memories were of another world where Quirks, literally, had never existed in the first place.
‘To them... am I nothing more than an extra in a comic book...?’
And the moment I realized it, my hazy consciousness burst awake as pain tore through my head as though something had burrowed into it.
"Cough!!! Guhk... Ngh..."
"S-Senior!!! The patient’s awake!!!"
"What!? Sir! Can you hear my voice? If you can hear me, please blink!!!"
When I opened my eyes, I saw two men who appeared to be paramedics shouting at me.
I tried to answer their questions, but the only thing that came from my mouth was coughing brought on by pain.
"Dam... Guhk!!!"
"Sir!!! You mustn’t speak!!!"
‘Damn it...’
It was a bizarre sensation, as if every last cubic centimeter of air had been drained from my lungs.
Every time I tried to inhale, the wounds all over my body pressed down on me in aching agony.
‘Like hell... I’ll die like this...’
As if mocking the version of myself that had given up on everything only moments ago, I now struggled with all my strength to remain conscious.
Was it because I had been influenced by that man in my memories... no, by the ‘me’ from my previous life?
Through that life review, I could feel it clearly.
The loneliness, regret, and clinging to life that the ‘me’ of the past had felt even in his dying moments.
One by one, those feelings gathered and were absorbed into the me of the present.
Ignoring both the pain coursing through my entire body and the voices of the paramedics, I focused every nerve on my breathing and barely held on to my consciousness, which felt ready to collapse.
"Kyoohhhhh..."
A strange breath escaped my mouth.
At the very moment my fading consciousness cut off completely, I could feel it.
The sensation of something within me—something vital that had felt on the verge of snapping at any moment—connecting once more.
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