The transition from a high-speed collision on a rain-slicked Tokyo highway to a hospital crib in Musutafu was a blur of noise, blinding lights, and a profound, crushing sense of disorientation.
I didn't meet a god. I didn't get a choice of cheat codes. There was just a sudden, violent conclusion of my previous life, followed by the terrifying realization that I was now a tiny, useless bundle of flesh named Ren Takeda.
Let's skip the first four years. Trust me, you don't want to live through them, and I certainly don't want to remember them.
Imagine having the mind of a twenty-five-year-old man trapped in a body that lacks the core strength to hold up its own head. It wasn't a power fantasy; it was psychological endurance training. My new parents were perfectly nice, normal people—my mother had hair that changed color with her mood, and my father could sneeze hard enough to rattle the windows—but living as their helpless infant was an exercise in pure frustration.
By the time I turned four, I had finally regained enough motor control to be left to my own devices. Which was exactly what I wanted.
Because this world was not Earth.
It was a world saturated with a strange, ambient energy that felt heavy against my skin. Here, eighty percent of the population possessed biological mutations called Quirks. Giant blonde men held up falling buildings on the news, and every kid in my preschool class was obsessed with becoming a professional hero.
I didn't care about heroes. I cared about the fact that when I practiced the traditional Ba Gua breathing exercises from my old life, that ambient energy actually listened.
The local park in Musutafu was a battleground of egos.
Every afternoon, children with newly manifested Quirks would run around, showing off fingers that could turn into plastic rulers or the ability to spit lukewarm water.
I spent those afternoons sitting cross-legged under the shade of a massive camphor tree at the edge of the playground, trying to find my center. I was a purist back on Earth. I had spent my weekends in a dusty dojo, learning that true power didn't come from muscle, but from leverage, breath, and balance. Here, I was trying to apply those same rules to the air around me.
It was infuriatingly hard.
I took a deep breath, drawing the heavy air into my lower abdomen. I raised my hand in a slow, continuous arc, visualizing the air as a fluid, yielding river.
Guide it, I thought. Don't force it.
My arm moved, tracing a half-circle. For a fraction of a second, I felt it—a faint, physical resistance against my palm, like moving my hand through thick water. I pushed forward.
A tiny, pathetic puff of wind ruffled the grass a few inches in front of my crossed legs.
I let out a long, tired sigh. My head throbbed. This wasn't some magical cheat system that gave me instant mastery. It was a grind. Every successful movement felt like trying to thread a needle while wearing oven mitts.
A gold smudge, floating on the edge of my vision like a persistent floater, updated itself lazily.
[Air Attunement: 0.01%]
[System Note: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single, pathetic breeze.]
"Shut up," I muttered to the empty air.
"Hey! You!"
I didn't need to open my eyes to know who it was. The smell of burnt caramel and the sharp pop-pop of mini firecrackers told me everything.
Katsuki Bakugo.
At age four, his Quirk had manifested with spectacular, violent flashiness. He could sweat nitroglycerin from his palms and ignite it. In a society that worshiped power, Bakugo had already been crowned a future king by the adults. It had turned him into an absolute nightmare of a child.
I opened my eyes. Bakugo was standing a few feet away, flanked by two other kids who followed him around like bodyguards. Behind them, a small, green-haired boy with freckles was sitting in the dirt, clutching a scraped knee and looking at Bakugo with terrified, wide eyes.
Izuku Midoriya. The resident punching bag.
"I'm talking to you, Takeda!" Bakugo barked, small explosions crackling in his palms. He looked less like a hero and more like a pint-sized loan collector. "Why are you always sitting here like a weirdo? My mom says your parents are worried because you haven't shown a Quirk yet. Are you Quirkless like Deku?"
I looked at the dirt between my feet, trying to keep my breathing steady. Getting angry at a four-year-old was a waste of energy, even if that four-year-old was a massive brat.
"I'm just sitting here, Katsuki," I said quietly. My voice was a bit too flat for a kid my age, but I didn't have the energy to fake high-pitched excitement. "Go play somewhere else."
"Don't ignore me!" Bakugo stomped forward, raising a smoking palm.
He was just trying to scare me, but he was careless. He was lunging with his whole upper body, throwing all his weight into his lead foot.
I didn't use any elemental air-tricks. I didn't have the strength for it anyway.
As his hand swung toward me, I didn't panic. I just shifted my weight from my heels to the balls of my feet, leaning back just enough to let his smoking fist sail past my face.
Then, I reached out and caught his wrist. I didn't squeeze or fight his strength. I simply pulled him forward, continuing the momentum he had already created, while sticking my leg out behind his ankle.
Bakugo's eyes widened as his feet left the ground. He sailed past me and face-planted directly into a muddy puddle near the bushes.
Splat.
The playground went dead silent. The two lackeys gaped. Midoriya's jaw practically hit the ground.
Bakugo pushed himself up, his face covered in mud, his spiky blonde hair looking ridiculous with wet leaves stuck in it. He stared at his hands, his chest heaving with a mix of shock and pure, unbridled fury. "You... what did you do?! You used a Quirk on me!"
"No Quirk," I said, closing my eyes and trying to return to my breathing. "You just leaned too far forward. Go clean up, Katsuki."
"I'm gonna beat you up!" Bakugo yelled, but his voice was trembling. Before he could lunge again, a daycare teacher's whistle shrieked from across the playground, calling everyone back to the cubbies.
Bakugo gave me one last, venomous glare before stomping off, his lackeys trailing behind him like nervous puppies.
I let out the breath I was holding. My heart was hammering. Even with my adult mind, a four-year-old's body lacked the adrenaline management to stay completely calm.
"Um... Ren-kun?"
I sighed. Midoriya was still there, clutching his yellow backpack, looking at me with those giant, wet eyes.
"He's going to be really mad tomorrow," Midoriya whispered, his voice shaking. "Katsuki doesn't like losing. Why didn't you just run away or tell a teacher?"
"Because running doesn't teach him to stop, Izuku," I said, without opening my eyes. "And neither does crying. You need to learn how to stand on your own feet."
Midoriya flinched slightly. He looked down at his own scraped knee, bit his lip, and slowly turned to walk away.
I stayed under the camphor tree until the sun began to dip below the horizon, casting long, orange shadows across the empty park. I was trying to shake the headache from my minor air manipulation earlier, focusing on the solid, unmoving ground beneath me.
"You're stiff in the hips, kid."
I jumped, my eyes snapping open as I scrambled into a defensive stance I'd practiced a thousand times.
An old man was sitting on the concrete retaining wall a few yards away. I hadn't heard him approach. He wore a faded green tracksuit that looked like it belonged in the 1980s, and he was casually eating a convenience store sweet bread. He was bald, wrinkled, and looked entirely harmless—except for his eyes. They were dark, sharp, and analyzing me like a hawk.
"Terrible follow-through on that sweep," the old man said, pointing a half-eaten piece of bread at me. "You're relying entirely on your arms to guide the momentum. If that explosive brat had been any heavier, you would have pulled yourself right over with him."
I narrowed my eyes. In this world, a random old man watching kids at a park was either a retired pro, a civilian, or a predator. "Who are you?"
The old man chuckled, a dry, raspy sound. He tossed the crinkly plastic wrapper into a nearby trash can with perfect, casual accuracy without looking. "Just an old man who misses the days before biological fireworks ruined actual martial arts. My name is Genji."
He hopped down from the wall. He was short, but as his feet hit the concrete, there was no sound. No impact. He just... landed. It was the mark of someone who had absolute mastery over their own weight.
"You've got the basic concepts down, brat," Genji said, walking past me toward the exit. "But your body is weak and your technique is sloppy. If you want to learn how to actually hold your ground without relying on a fancy Quirk, meet me here tomorrow at five. Bring a towel. You're going to need it."
He didn't wait for my answer. He just waved a lazy hand over his shoulder and disappeared into the twilight shadows of alleyway.
I stood there for a long moment, looking at the spot where he had been.
The gold text flared at the bottom of my vision.
[LORE-SYNC: The Mentor has appeared.]
[New Objective: Survive Genji's Training.]
LORE-SYNC & PROGRESSION
+----------------+-------------+-------------------------------+
| Element | Attunement | Technique Level|
+----------------+-------------+-------------------------------+
| Air | 0.01% | Latent (Basic physical friction)|
| Earth | 0.00% | Locked |
| Water | 0.00% | Locked |
| Fire | 0.00% | Locked |
+----------------+-------------+-------------------------------+