Four years.
Four years of running, lifting, sparring, reading, writing, analyzing.
If his eight-year-old self had been a blade being sharpened, then twelve-year-old Izuku Midoriya was a weapon honed to a razor's edge. Not just in body-though his lean, wiry frame could now outpace most grown men-but in mind.
School was... different for him now. To the teachers, he was the quiet boy who aced every exam and rarely spoke unless called upon. To his classmates, he was the "weird nerd" who knew too much about everything, from quirk mutation patterns to structural weaknesses in buildings. What none of them knew was that every scrap of knowledge was fuel for a larger plan.
It wasn't enough to be strong. You had to be smart.
Smarter than villains.
Smarter than heroes.
Smarter than fate itself.
---
The math class droned on in the background, the teacher scribbling formulas on the board. Izuku's pencil moved quickly over his notebook-not copying notes, but redesigning them, compressing complicated equations into shorthand systems only he understood. Numbers weren't just numbers to him anymore-they were tools.
How much force would it take to collapse a load-bearing beam without explosives?
What's the minimum running speed to evade a shockwave radius?
How long could a person last without oxygen at various altitudes?
He didn't think like a twelve-year-old. He thought like a strategist preparing for war.
---
During lunch break, while other kids played soccer or traded snacks, Izuku sat under the shade of an old tree with a thick binder in his lap. It was one of his "field manuals"-a compilation of hero fight breakdowns, rescue techniques, and hypothetical villain countermeasures.
A girl from his class approached, curious.
"Midoriya, is that for school?" she asked, tilting her head.
"No," Izuku said simply, flipping a page to a diagram of a burning skyscraper. "It's... preparation."
She blinked. "Preparation for what?"
"Anything," he said, and his eyes were so steady that she didn't ask again.
---
At home, his mother had noticed the changes too.
He still smiled for her, still thanked her for dinner, still hugged her before bed. But gone was the clumsy, wide-eyed boy who tripped over his own feet. Now, he moved with a quiet precision, every gesture deliberate.
His grades were flawless-perfect scores in math, science, literature, and even art. But Inko knew better than to think this was just about school pride. She'd caught him once, sketching out blueprints for reinforced shelters in the back of his math notebook. Another time, she saw him timing himself while blindfolded, navigating the apartment by touch alone.
"Sweetie... are you sure you're not overdoing it?" she'd asked one night.
Izuku had paused, his pencil hovering over a page. Then he smiled faintly, though his eyes stayed distant.
"I can't overdo it, Mom. Not when I don't know what's coming."
---
His awareness wasn't limited to books. Izuku had taught himself to observe people-really observe them. The way someone shifted their weight when they were about to lie. How a flicker in the eyes could betray panic before a fight. He made mental files on everyone he met, teachers included.
By now, his mind was a living archive: battle tactics, rescue logistics, human behavior, quirk mechanics, architecture, geography, physics. He could glance at a city street and instantly map every potential escape route, every blind corner where an ambush could happen.
Most of it, his peers would never understand. But that didn't matter. His intelligence wasn't for show-it was for survival.
---
That night, Izuku sat at his desk under the pale glow of a desk lamp.
On the surface lay his latest project: a multi-layered timeline of possible disaster scenarios, from villain attacks to natural catastrophes. Each had contingency steps written in clean, block letters.
In the corner of the page, in his neat handwriting, he added three more words to his old mantra:
Be Ready. Always.
Izuku leaned back, looking at his work. Twelve years old-and yet, he knew more about crisis response than some pro heroes. Still, he felt the gnawing truth in his chest:
Not enough.
Never enough.
He closed the binder, slid it into his drawer, and glanced out the window at the city lights. Somewhere out there, danger was brewing. Somewhere out there, the moment he'd been preparing for was inching closer.
And when it came... he'd be ready.
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Thank you for reading chapter 5.
Next chapter: secret place.