In that void and darkness, a passage opened. The familiar doorway glowed brightly and it drew me closer, waiting for me to enter.
My body was gone, leaving only emptiness and a spark of reason in its place.
Here in the darkness, I was nothing. Perhaps a spirit or a ghost. All that remained was to think about getting out of here, going through the door, stepping out into light.
Shifting my mind toward the light, I found myself right in the middle of the doorway and saw that I had grown two heads taller than my former self! My arms had grown enormous and filled with muscle, and the mad smile never left my face.
"I am Almight!" I cried out. The loud voice literally shook the street.
The people passing by clearly weren't expecting this; some even lost their footing.
Their fear didn't last long; the realization that a hero, a legend, was right there with them quickly dispelled the last of it. The crowd surged toward me, shouting and pushing, vying with each other to ask for a photo or an autograph.
I towered over them like a giant. Over these strange "people." Each of them had a Quirk, and it was easily noticeable. Animal-like features: tails, protruding ears, fur. Some had unnatural physiology: holes in their bodies, a third eye, a square head. Some were unremarkable, but I swear they had a Quirk too, maybe like Todoroki or Bakugo The world of My Hero Academia welcomed me!
In my huge palms, the pen felt like a toothpick, and the notebook like a piece of Velcro. It turned out I was wearing different clothes now. The hero costume was gone, replaced by a tight white T-shirt and jeans with a metal belt buckle shaped like Almight's logo: a stylized letter "A." There was something in the back pocket of my jeans.
The sun was shining at its zenith, and fluffy white clouds drifted lazily past. I felt and pulled out of my pocket a paper package, crumpled by my powerful backside—a volume of manga.
Not just any manga! My Hero Academia!
The very first volume.
Wasting no time, I began leafing through the volume, struck by the lightning-bolt realization that none of this was a coincidence.
And then, a few pages into the first chapter, a frame with this very place appeared. Concrete blocks of buildings and a sign above them: "12:02 in this very city."
In the next frame, the evil slime, possessing other people's bodies, rushes down the street, knocking down passersby.
Before I could process it, the same thing happened in my new "reality." People screaming, destruction, the evil one right there on the street! The shimmering mass resembled mud with wide, sunken eyes and enormous teeth. I'd never seen such horror.
"The robber is escaping! Who is he?!" one of the people shouted.
"Catch me if you can!" the slime replied.
The encounter with the monster didn't frighten the passersby much.
Apparently, people living in a quirky society are used to such occurrences.
Or perhaps it was the Japanese mentality speaking, since they've always been nihilists.
An earthquake would hit, a tsunami would wash away several houses, terrorists would spray gas in the subway, and yet life had to go on.
Mustering up my courage, I glanced down at the bottom of the page, where Almight's line was right there.
He was supposed to interject into the conversation of the passersby and then deliver his signature line: "Because I'm here!"
But there was no longer any intrigue. After all, the passersby already knew who stood before them.
Thanks to the fact that, upon stepping out into the open, I shouted it loud and clear. Instead of throwing around pompous phrases, I came up with an entirely different plan.
First, I needed to hide from the crowd. Almight simply had to crouch and push off with his feet to leap high into the sky.
He moved with such enormous leaps, just like the Hulk. But I couldn't do that!
And trying would have risked destroying several buildings along with the people inside. I didn't want to begin my heroic career with a terrorist attack. So the only thing left was to run.
After a few minutes of running, I felt a sharp pain in my side.
Gritting my teeth to hold back a cry of pain, I leaned against the wall of a building, somewhere in a narrow alleyway. The brickwork barely withstood the unexpected onslaught and was covered in a web of cracks. Lifting my shirt, I discovered a nasty wound, the very one inflicted by All for One. Almight should have revealed it in the first chapter, on the roof.
After all, right now the manga's plot is unfolding, somewhere in this town, at school, right now Bakugo is bullying Deku. Soon the slime will take him over, and All Might will have to save the "main character." And then it's business as usual. No, this won't work. Not on my watch, All Might.
"First off, no successors. Fuck it. Secondly, I need to survive and kill All for One. Don't let him get stronger. Thirdly," I counted off my fingers one by one, "I need to fuck every heroine of this fucking manga! This is my hentai doujinsha now!"
From somewhere above, a bucket of cold water was poured on me. A toothless old woman leaned out of the window and started wailing, "Get out of here, you bastard! I'll call the heroes now!"
I just smiled at her.
My journey begins now.