I jerked awake, and the first thing that hit me was the ceiling—low, yellowed plaster, a single bare bulb dangling like it was doing me a favor by not exploding. For half a second I thought, "This is my room." Then everything moved too fast.
I shoved myself off the bed, and my bare feet hit the cold floor. The room was small, cramped, and barely more than a box. No posters. No chargers snaking across the carpet. No familiar clutter that belonged to me. Panic showed up like an unwanted guest, sudden and loud.
'Where the hell am I?'
I lunged for the mirror over the sink in the tiny bathroom opposite the bed. The reflection that stared back made air leave my lungs.
'What the fuck?'
A kid looked back at me. Not a teen—a kid with soft, round cheeks that still had that baby-fat look. White hair lay flat and lank at odd angles, as if a bleach job had gone wrong. My jawline? Vanished. My eyes—black, deep, and blank—were not the brown I'd always remembered. Everything was wrong. My hands shook, and the face in the glass moved with them.
I peeled off the pajama top fast, like it was a lie. My body felt different—lighter in some places, softer in others. I looked at my stomach and stared at a faint curve I didn't recognize.
'Why the hell do I look fat?'
I yanked down the pajama pants to check and felt sick. The skin… it had more of it, softer and pliant. I pulled them back up, and the room spun. My biceps were gone—replaced by sticks—and when I flexed there was no bite, no definition. Even my voice sounded wrong when I whispered into the sink.
'I… I'm not me.'
Memory slid around in my head like a puzzle that had been knocked off a coffee table. Pieces rattled, some flashing faces, some lines from the manga I'd thrown away an hour—was it an hour?—ago. I could remember useless things with painful clarity—one-shot quips, character names, arcs, and panels—but the image of my own face, my last birthday, my mother's laugh? Gone.
A name came without warning and stuck like gum to the roof of my mouth: Ryuga Sakamoto.
'Nope. Not mine.'
But the more I tried to shove it away, the louder the small film reel of Ryuga's life played behind my eyes—snatches that weren't mine but were now lodged in the crawlspace of my skull. Emiko Sakamoto—mother. Hana—little sister. Musutafu—city. No, Father. Bullying, and the specific sour taste of being called 'quirkless' like it was a joke everyone kept laughing at.
I felt something like nausea and anger mix together. My hands found my chin, and I looked at the kid in the mirror and said it out loud, leveling the truth like a verdict.
'Ryuga Sakamoto is a fucking loser.'
The words sounded like stones in my mouth. I scrubbed at my face with both palms until the sting turned real. Part of me didn't want to accept any of it—another part, colder and more practical, cataloged the new coordinates of my life: quirkless, bullied, weak. White hair that people assumed was dyed. A family that, if the memories were true, barely held together.
I forced myself away from the sink and out into the room, trying to breathe like I was not about to break. 'This isn't real. I'm not in the My Hero Academia world. No way.' My voice tried to be defiant but came out thin. My hands fumbled to the window, and I flung it open.
For one stupid second I expected to see skyline-wide heroes and blaring billboards. Instead—another building. Brick. Laundry lines. A pigeon. Ordinary. I closed the window and pressed my forehead to the cool wood frame like that would anchor me.
'Okay. Think. Phone. Wallet. Keys. My life.'
I tore through the small desk drawer and found—of all things—a flip phone. I froze, half laughing at the relic, half angry at my survival instincts for treating it like a lifeline. Somehow my fingers knew where to press. I flipped it open, and it felt natural, like muscle memory from someone else's body.
I scrolled through contacts and messages, my thumb moving as if this body had used the phone yesterday, last week, or forever. I stopped when I saw the date on the screen.
'Today is 2022, 1 May.'
My head skewed. 'No way. The last time I remember it was 2025.' I swallowed hard. 'This is impossible.'
The phone's wallpaper showed a family photo—two adults and a small girl with a crooked smile. The woman looked strikingly familiar suddenly—Emiko. My throat worked like I'd swallowed a fist.
Everything else buzzed and clattered in my brain—the loud, ugly truths of the world I'd read about: rumors of growing unrest and of villain groups swelling like ulcers. How fast an ordinary life could be eaten by headlines. The thought hit me harder than any punch—this place, this time, things are about to get worse.
I dropped onto the bed, and the thin mattress swallowed me up. My chest heaved. The exhaustion that washed through me was deep and real; running to the window and around the room had outpaced what my new muscles could handle. I was tired like someone who had been running a long time.
'Ugh, god, this body is so weak,' I wheezed into the pillow. The thought came bitter and honest: 'Being quirkless here is a handicap. Not the end of the world, but a raw, constant bruise. I stared at the ceiling, and the white hairs that framed my face in the mirror floated in my mind like a halo that didn't belong.
Tears came hot and quick, surprising me with their ferocity. I buried my face in the pillow and sobbed—not out of despair only, but from the loneliness of being a stranger to my own life.
And then—like a bell breaking the hush—the flip phone vibrated on the bedside table.
I froze, breath caught. The screen flashed a notification I hadn't expected: a message preview, a missed call, and an alert from somewhere I didn't belong.
My hand shook as I reached for it. The room narrowed to the glow of the small screen and the tiny, insistent text scrolling up like a tide.
I didn't know who I'd be answering. I didn't know who I was even supposed to be. But whatever that notification said, it would be the next new thing in a life that suddenly wasn't mine...
I flipped it open.