I regained consciousness the next morning.
Having heard that their son had been in a traffic accident, my parents dropped everything and rushed over.
Only after I barely managed to calm Mom down, after she started crying loud enough to shake the hospital while hugging me, was I able to hear what the doctor had to say.
"This is..."
"Um... Is there something wrong with our Ryusuke...?"
"No... it is not that, but..."
For some reason, though, the doctor and nurses wore strange expressions as they looked at me sitting up in bed.
My parents fidgeted anxiously, not knowing what to do in response to the doctor’s reaction.
Having apparently finally organized his thoughts, the doctor removed the hand clutching his throbbing head and continued.
"I thought I had examined all kinds of patients by now... but this is my first time seeing a case like this..."
"Huh? What do you mean...?"
"You may not know this as his guardians, but the patient’s original condition was so severe that it would have been a miracle for him to be transported to the hospital alive, let alone be hospitalized and treated."
The doctor calmly described my condition from yesterday.
Both arms and several ribs had been completely shattered by the impact of the accident. Fortunately, there had been no massive bleeding that would endanger my life, but the broken bones had twisted and pressed against my lungs, making even breathing difficult.
That was probably why every breath had hurt so badly back then.
Yet contrary to the doctor’s explanation, my condition had improved to the point where I needed no special treatment beyond a splint on my left arm, which had been more badly injured than my right.
"To think those grave injuries would improve this much in a single night... No, in barely half a day..."
"Doctor, then could it be... that our child’s Quirk..."
"No, this is not the power of a Quirk either. No activated Quirk factor has been found in Ryusuke’s body."
"How could that be..."
Mom’s most ordinary explanation must have been that I had awakened some kind of regenerative Quirk in that critical moment.
But contrary to what she thought, I was still Quirkless.
It could not be called a Quirk because no Quirk factor had been detected, yet the speed of my recovery was too abnormally fast to be dismissed as an individual trait.
At that strange result, Mom and Dad—and even the doctor explaining the examination results—looked troubled, question marks practically floating over their heads.
"Well... there are no abnormalities in the test results, so if the patient wishes, you may be discharged as early as today, but..."
"Then I’d like to be discharged."
"Ryusuke!!!"
"It’s okay, Mom. It still aches a little, but I can’t just miss school."
‘Besides, there’s something I need to test...’
Still, the fact remained that most of my injuries had healed, so after barely persuading my parents, who kept trying to make me rest, I was able to leave the hospital.
That said, the bone in my left arm had not fully fused yet, so I would need to wear a splint on my forearm for the next week.
"Got it? We had no choice but to let you leave because you wanted to, Ryusuke, but for this entire week, you must absolutely not overdo it!!!"
"It’s okay, Mom. I’m only going back and forth to school, anyway."
After finally slipping into my room while avoiding Mom’s watchful gaze, I lay down on my bed and sorted through my thoughts.
My head throbbed as memories of my previous life and my current life mixed together at random, making it hard even to remain standing.
But there was something I absolutely had to find out, so I took out my smartphone and searched the web.
It was far more accurate than relying on the vague, jumbled memories created by two sets of memories blending together.
Four hours passed as I combed through my phone.
Even when Mom called me to dinner, I brushed her off and kept searching. In the end, I found my answer.
‘Haha... so that’s what it was...’
When I first recovered my memories from my previous life, I nearly let out a hollow laugh in front of my parents upon realizing that the world I now lived in was a world from a manga.
But because of the uneasiness I felt for some reason, I could not easily settle on an answer. After investigating like this, I finally learned the source of that discomfort.
Various “contradictions” between my past-life memories and my present-life memories.
They had been circling through my mind, tormenting me.
‘It’s similar. Very similar... but... it’s different.’
The world I lived in now certainly resembled the world of the manga I had read in my previous life.
No, perhaps it resembled it so closely that it would not be strange to say I had truly reincarnated into the manga world I had seen in my previous life.
However, there were clear differences from the manga’s world.
"All For One... and All Might."
All Might—the natural-born Hero, the Symbol of Peace in the world of My Hero Academia, and a textbook example for all Heroes.
And All For One—the Villain who stood as his perfect opposite, while also being the greatest evil in that world.
Two beings who should have been indispensable to the My Hero Academia world.
Yet even after four long hours of research, I could not find any information about either of them.
All For One was a Villain, so that was one thing, but I could not even properly find anything about All Might, the No. 1 Hero.
I considered whether I might be living far before or after the manga’s timeline, but information about the other Heroes who appeared in the story was easy enough to find.
In the end, there was only one conclusion I could draw.
"This is a world where All For One was never born..."
If All For One had never been born, then [One For All], which originated from his Quirk, would not exist. And without it, the natural-born Hero All Might would never appear either.
That meant the League of Villains, the Nightmare of Kamino, and even the all-out war might all become events that never happened.
But that did not mean I could relax.
For now, all of this was merely my speculation.
Perhaps [One For All] simply had not been created, and All For One had therefore never revealed himself.
Besides, even without All For One, this was still, quite literally, a superhuman society.
Even now, dozens of Villains were probably running rampant somewhere.
"Then there is only one thing for me to do..."
Become strong enough to protect myself and my family, at the very least.
With that in mind, I lowered my head and looked at my left arm, which had not yet fully healed.
‘As I thought... this is...’
An ability that had healed an arm so badly damaged that “crushed” was more accurate than “broken,” reducing the injury to little more than a fracture in barely half a day.
It was neither a Quirk nor medicine, nor was it some personal trait of mine.
If my guess was right, this was a “technique.” I knew it, though only vaguely through my memories of my previous life.
"No... calm down... I still can’t be certain it’s really that technique..."
But unlike my thoughts, my heart was pounding madly.
A strange emotion born from the thrill of my past self, who could use a technique seen only in manga, mixing with the joy of my present self, who no longer had to fall behind everyone else with a Quirk.
I barely got that racing heart under control and straightened my posture.
"Fwooooo..."
Then I expelled every last breath from my lungs and recalled the sensation from that moment.
The pain I had felt at death’s door.
The electrifying sensation that came with every breath.
And the warm vitality that had enveloped my entire body like a gentle embrace.
That strange sensation of feeling gradually return to my hands and feet.
"Hooooo..."
Little by little, ever so slowly, I steadied my uneven breathing.
More accurately.
More intensely.
More smoothly.
My entire body began to move in time with the pulse of life, which I could feel growing stronger by the moment.
"KyoOOOOO..."
Crackle!!!
When my breathing stabilized and I began to make that distinctive sound, my left arm slowly began moving along with a sound like an electrical current flowing through it.
Crack... creak...
It was as if my bones and muscles possessed wills of their own, moving freely as they found their proper places.
Yet strangely, I did not feel the slightest pain as that entire process unfolded.
Rather, the sensation of fatigue leaving my entire body was so pleasant—like stepping into a hot bath in the middle of winter—that I nearly stopped breathing.
Then, when every sound coming from my left arm finally stopped—
The pain that had been throbbing through it until moments ago vanished completely, and it was perfectly healed.
"Whew... Cough! Cough!"
However, perhaps because I was still unskilled, my breathing fell apart when my attention was briefly drawn to my completely healed arm.
The resulting exhaustion hit me hard.
But even more than that, exhilaration overwhelmed me at having successfully used Hamon.
‘For now, this is enough...’
This was a problem that would be solved as I continued to train in Hamon.
The more I used Hamon, the more my body would gradually change into one suited for it.
Once that happened, using Hamon would no longer strain my lungs.
Besides, Hamon could ease a certain degree of pain, so the pain I felt now would not be much of a problem either.
My first goal now was to be able to use Hamon Breathing freely.
And to use that Hamon Breathing unconsciously, maintaining it at all times.
Those were my two goals.
‘If I can just do that... then I, too...’
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