"Huff... huff..."
The very next morning.
I ran to a nearby park and began a light jog.
My parents still thought one of my arms had not fully healed, so they were hardly thrilled by my sudden decision to exercise. Still, I somehow managed to convince them by showing them my perfectly fine left arm.
"Hup... haa..."
The pace was so slow that it would have been more accurate to call it walking than jogging.
Yet after just thirty minutes of jogging, my entire body was already drenched in sticky sweat.
‘Damn... Maintaining my breathing is way harder than I thought...’
No matter how hard I concentrated, each step threw off my breathing, and the drain on my mental energy was enormous.
It was like trying to draw a triangle with my right hand and a square with my left at the same time—my concentration kept falling apart.
In the end, I felt like I would collapse from dehydration if I kept running, so I stopped and practically sprawled onto a nearby bench to catch my breath.
"Haa... haa..."
"You seem mildly dehydrated. Are you all right?"
"Huh?"
A large shadow fell over me, along with a blue sports drink offered in front of my face.
I lifted my exhausted face and looked at the person who had spoken to me.
"You..."
"Hm? Have we met before?"
When I stared at his face with a startled expression, he was the one who looked surprised instead.
That was right. I knew this guy.
No, I knew those square glasses and that ridiculously earnest personality!
"Ah... You’re Iida Tenya, right? I’m Ichijo Ryusuke. We’re in the same class."
"I see!!! Good grief, I believed I had memorized every one of my classmates’ faces, but because it is still so early in the term, I have made this mistake. My apologies!"
Come to think of it, the school I attended was Soumei Middle School.
Along with my memories of my past life, the current me also knew about Iida Tenya.
We had done little more than occasionally pass each other in the halls over the last two years, but realizing anew that someone I had only seen in manga in my past life had actually attended the same school as me for two years gave me a strange feeling.
"In any case, this is the first time we have met somewhere like this. Have you started jogging as well, Ichijo?"
"Yeah... Well... there are a few things I want to try out... Oh, right! This works out perfectly. Could you spare me a little time?"
"If I can be of help, gladly."
He was willing to spend his precious weekend for the sake of someone he had, for all practical purposes, never spoken to before.
Well, I had expected him to agree to a request like this, but I still felt a little guilty, as though I were taking advantage of his personality.
Iida Tenya, Quirk [Engine].
True to its name, his Quirk had an almost excessively massive twelve-cylinder engine embedded in each of his calves. Due to the nature of his Quirk, he ranked among the very best of the many people in the story when it came to running speed and the power of his kicks. He would probably be able to help me with all sorts of things.
"So, what is it?"
"Well... My Quirk manifested recently, actually."
"It has only manifested now? That is rather late, but congratulations!"
At some point, Iida had sat down right beside me and started drinking orange juice.
I vaguely described Hamon as a breathing-related Quirk and began talking with him.
"Hmm... I am sorry, but I do not think I can offer you much advice. Still, it has not even been a week since your Quirk manifested, Ichijo, so it is only natural that you cannot control it freely yet. Rather than becoming too impatient, I believe it is important to find your own pace."
"I see..."
Unfortunately, after hearing everything I had said, Iida wore a rather troubled expression.
Well, what I had just asked him was practically the same as asking someone else how to breathe, so I understood why Iida was flustered.
‘In the end, just as Iida said, instead of rushing ahead, the best thing is to start slowly from the beginning...’
But even after hearing that, a sense of urgency remained knotted somewhere inside me.
There were less than ten months left until the U.A. High School entrance exam, my current goal.
My current situation was the same as Midoriya’s at the beginning of the story, when he first met All Might.
No, I did not even have a mentor to help me train, so I might be even further behind.
"Iida."
"Yes?"
"You’re aiming for U.A., aren’t you?"
"Hmm, certainly! If one is a middle school student aspiring to become a Hero, everyone aims for U.A., not just me."
Unlike me, anxious and impatient, his eyes were straightforward and clear.
For some reason, looking into those eyes made me feel foolish.
"I see... Everyone is aiming for U.A...."
"You are too, aren’t you, Ichijo?"
"Do you think it’s stupid?"
"No! Of course not! Laughing at someone else’s dream? That is unthinkable!!!"
Unlike me, he dreamed of being a Hero not as a means, but as an end in itself.
He possessed a kind of goodwill that was hard for someone like me, who had lived alone all my life, to properly put into words.
Seeing how honest and proper he was, despite this being our first real conversation, I naturally found myself thinking, ‘That’s so like Iida.’
"Then... you’re one of my rivals too, Iida."
"Is that so?"
"Well... I look pretty pathetic right now, but just wait. I’ll catch up to you before long."
"Catch up, you say... That is, if you can."
As he said that, Iida lightly patted his calves.
After my sudden declaration that he was my rival and Iida’s equally confident reply, we looked at each other for a moment before bursting into laughter at the same time.
After that, Iida and I exchanged phone numbers and LINE IDs, then went our separate ways.
It had been an unexpectedly brief encounter, but regardless, being able to meet Iida now was a tremendous stroke of luck for me.
"A rival... huh."
Of course, I did not truly think I could catch up to Iida, but that was precisely why he had become such a major goal for me.
Don’t get impatient. Find my own pace.
That was the best I could do after falling behind for the past ten years.
"Hooooo..."
I sat on my bed, calmed my body and mind, straightened my posture, and began to meditate.
For now, I would begin by stabilizing my breathing.
If I could just maintain steady breathing, my muscles, Hamon’s power, and its precision would naturally improve.
Jogging while maintaining Hamon Breathing... Thinking about it calmly, I had done something incredibly foolish.
I had not even begun to crawl; I was barely at the stage of trying to rise, wiggling my hips off the floor. It would have been absurd if I could start running around right away.
Even now, while sitting still and meditating, my breathing almost broke several times.
‘Well... Meeting Iida was worth it, though.’
I did not possess Jonathan’s talent, nor did I have Joseph’s innate aptitude for Hamon.
On top of that, I had no teacher like Baron Zeppeli or Lisa Lisa.
All I knew were the settings from the original work and the various theories and fantasies I had drawn from them.
I had to build everything up from the very beginning, one step at a time.
‘Don’t get impatient. There are still a little over ten months until the U.A. entrance exam.’
Joseph and Caesar had trained under Lisa Lisa for only three or four weeks at most.
Of course, I did not think I could compare to the training of a professional Hamon instructor, but I had more than ten times as much time remaining.
With every breath, my body gradually grew more comfortable.
Even sitting in seiza, which would ordinarily have become uncomfortable long ago, placed no burden on me at all.
‘Right... If I keep doing this little by little, someday I’ll be able to do it freely even during everyday life...’
"Ichijo!!! Come out and have dinner now!!!"
"Pffft!!!"
In the middle of maintaining my Hamon, Mom’s sudden shout threw off my breathing and made me choke.
‘Thank goodness Hamon doesn’t have side effects...’
Of course, right now I could not even move while maintaining it; even the slightest stimulation disrupted me.
But for now, this was enough.
Like climbing a staircase one step at a time, I would steadily grow stronger.
Crackle!!!
Feeling the faint but powerful Hamon energy flowing through my body, I went to eat dinner.
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