The screaming was the first thing my mind registered as my body flew through the air. It was not the pain, not the light, but the screaming that sounded like a storm of Elephants stomping on my head. Honestly, I didn't know who was screaming or why they were screaming, but as my body fell, landing on the ground, all bloodied, dripping from broken bones that stuck out, and in a position that shouldn't be possible. The last thing I saw before darkness took me was the truck that had just missed a child, whom I had saved, then nothingness came, and death took me.
You probably don't know who I am, and that is perfectly fine. I wasn't someone special, just a plain and average guy who died. The only thing special about me was the fact that I saved someone, and I didn't understand why. I wasn't the heroic type of person; hell, I rarely even interacted with people, and would usually be alone. But seeing that truck drive uncontrollably toward that child, my body acted on its own, and I pushed the child away, saving them but ending my life instead of theirs. This very heroic nature went against the very being of my personality, which made me intrigued by why my body acted on its own.
But it looks like I wasn't going to be able to figure out why my body acted so illogically, or why it went against my nature's instinct of self-preservation. Before the accident, I had been on my way to buy some Manga, since I had been curious about what it was like owning a copy. I usually just read manga online, but today of all days, I had to be curious enough to leave my home. And that wasn't even the worst part, the worst part was the fact that my mother was making my favorite meal today, I guess I was never going to get to eat it, or see any of my family again, damn, that hurt just thinking about it.
Then we had my pet Chad. Yes, I named him Chad. Don't you dare judge me; it's a perfectly reasonable name. Chad was my pitbull dog, who was going to feed him; sure, owning such a pitbull isn't inherently more expensive than other dogs. But I put a lot of work into my dog Chad, from expensive food, vet care, training, and more. I loved that little bastard more than anything in the world, including my family, whom I wasn't close to. Yet somehow, I hoped to whatever god is hearing me, that someone took care of him, he didn't deserve to suffer because I was a bad person.
Honestly, at least I died knowing that I did one good thing in this godforsaken world. Sure, I wasn't the best person, and I wasn't even a kind person. I was rude, ungrateful, and an all-around asshole. Yet, I wouldn't change anything about myself, because I knew who I was and what I was meant to be. Even if it meant dying knowing that people hated me or disliked me, it was better than regretting my life. Because I didn't regret my life, and I never would. This was my last fuck you to the world, and if I could, I would give it the middle finger.
I wouldn't change for anyone, and fuck anyone who tries to change me. And whatever would happen to me next would be a mystery. I didn't believe in an afterlife or god, yet despite that, it didn't scare me. The unknown was just something that I would have to deal with, and maybe something better would wait for me on the other side. Those were my final thoughts before I drifted off to sleep.
****
I groan loudly and roll around, feeling a bright light shining in my eyes. I slowly opened my eyes and looked to see myself looking at a colorful ceiling of blue, leaving me confused about what was happening. I then tried to move around, but my legs were being restrained by something, which made me panic at not being able to move. I then looked around to see myself wrapped in an expensive-looking blanket. But that wasn't all, I also saw my body, which looked like a newborn. This shouldn't be possible. I should be dead. I didn't want to be reborn.
I tried to deny it, I didn't believe in reincarnation, or rebirth, I only believed in what science could prove, and this wasn't one of things moments. Did my one selfless act give me a second chance, but why? It was all so confusing. But wait, if I am alive, could I see my family again, and my pet dog, would they even know me? The emotions inside me were spinning out of control, anger at being reborn against my will, the relief of being alive again, and the feeling of helplessness of my family not knowing me. All of it was too much for me, and I started to let out a panic cry. I wasn't good at handling my emotions, and being a newborn didn't exactly help either. It all felt too much.
"Oh, is young master hungry?" A delicate female voice spoke up, which momentarily stopped me from screaming in a panic. I then felt someone pick me up, and I looked to see a woman wearing a suit, which seemed to be navy in color. "I have already prepared your meal." Before I could silence my cries, her out for picking me up, she already pressed a bottle to my lips, and I drank it, due to having no other choice. Damnit, my pride couldn't handle such embarrassment. I was a grown ass man, not a fucking child, whoever made me reborn, I curse you to hell. But damn, I was so hungry for food.
"You are angry today, young master." The woman mused with an amused smile on her face, and I tried to glare at her, but my glare was rather pathetic given my new form. She just chuckled after seeing the adorable glare I gave her, and that just pissed me off even more. Okay, that was it. No one laughed at me, and I grabbed her finger, squeezing it, but then it broke, and I let out a surprised gasp. Not expecting my baby's body to have the strength to break her finger, she let out a hiss but didn't pull away, as her finger healed itself and went back to normal.
"You are already so strong." The woman said with a hiss of pain, yet didn't seem angry, and then another woman and a man walked inside. They were dressed differently from the woman holding, which made me assume that they were my parents. I also let out another gasp of shock at seeing her appearance. This woman is beautiful and refined. Her eyes were a diamond-like blue color, and she had a spider pattern on her forehead. The hair is blonde, appearing exceptionally healthy and well-kept. But that wasn't the shocking part; the shocking part was the fact that she had two extra arms.
Then we had the man, who looked like a lean, young, handsome man with long dark hair with tan brown highlights, which was tied up in a ponytail. He also has thin red rimmed glasses, and he also underneath is a black dress shirt and a white ascot. Unlike who I assume was my mother, he looked like a regular human, which left me feeling very confused. Was my dad into freaks, or was it a world where it was normal for people to look so differently from each other?
"Oh my, my Kenji is such a strong boy." The woman said gently and proudly while she picked me up with her two main arms. And before I could try to wiggle free, she used her two extra, to produce thin strands of silk to create a blanket for me, wrapping my small body around it. If I could speak, I would have very unkind words towards her. I had Arachnophobia, and the fact that she had wrapped me in spider silk freaked me out. I couldn't help myself and started to cry uncontrollably. Why was I such a huss, and why did my new mother look like a spider?
"Mmm." The man made a sound and ran a finger across my face. "It seems that our son is restless, allow me." With that, he pulled down his sleeve, revealing his arm to be that of a hawk caterpillar's segments in conjunction with his skin. That freaked me out even more, and I screamed louder before green smoke surrounded me, and I suddenly fell asleep without explanation. "There, that should make him rest." The man mused to his wife, producing sedatives from one of his arms to make his son sleep. And that was all I heard before darkness took me again.
****
Okay, it has been a few years now, and I think I have gotten a pretty good handle on my life as a six-year-old. Time flew exceptionally fast, which I blamed on my infant body. Young brains have lower frequency brainwaves (delta/theta) compared to adults' alpha waves, making a slower internal timekeeping mechanism. Essentially, to me, it felt like an eternity to just watch a few hours pass, due to my brain's internal timekeeping clock, making it seem much slower than it actually was. And honestly, I freaking hated it so much, but I couldn't do anything about it. Despite having the mind of an adult, I was still subject to this body's functions.
I had learnt that my name was Kenji Kagura, and I am the son of my father, Riku Kagura, and my mother, Aiko Kagura. Honestly, I still haven't gotten over the fact that I was now living in a different world. But at least I was given a second chance at maybe living a good life. I wasn't going to, but at least I had the choice, which was what was most important. Even if I continued to be an unapologetic asshole. You can't judge me for not changing. I have the right to live however I want. And also, it felt like the only thing that I had control over. And it was much easier to be the same person than to have to change my entire personality.
The first few years were the hardest. Being picked up around, carried in the arms of the servants, no control over my limbs, or having no control over my bowel movements, which was the worst. I felt so pathetic being in this form and helpless; I was essentially useless in this form, which I hated. But despite my pride, I was willing to look it over, or that was until I finally learned to walk when I was one year old. That was when I decided that I was not going to be picked up anymore, or more exactly, that lastly, for only a few days, until I realized how tiresome it was working in such a small form. I couldn't exactly keep up with my adult parents, which led me to still being carried around.
It was only when I became a toddler that I was finally able to be let loose to express my chaotic nature. As a six-year-old, I ran around like a tyrant in the estate, and my parents found it adorable, much to my annoyance. It also didn't help that I was seriously bored with everything when attending school, and hated how condescending adults were. At this age, children learn advanced reading and writing skills, such a simple sentences, names, and words, but also grasp basic math. But to me, I already knew this and was massively ahead of my peers, yet no adult took me seriously.
Besides that, I had learnt pretty early that my parents were the only freaks around, the entire world is nearly filled with freaks, or should I say people with Quirks. This world's normal is so weird for me, since almost everyone has these weird powers. They were genetic, and the way they worked was… complicated, I guess. Some people just emitted stuff, others changed their bodies while using powers, and some lived permanently as weird mutations of humans. There were three types of Quirks categorized mainly into three types: Emitter, Transformation, and Mutant, based on how the ability affects the body and usage.
Lucky for me, my parents' mutant quirks gave them abilities that were related to insects, and they were not that hard to understand, even for someone who wasn't born in this world. After all, their quirks were related to insects, which made it easy to understand, or at least that was from my point of view. My mother's Quirk allows her to have every physiology of the daddy long-legs, which made her abilities rather creepy in my opinion. But interestingly, the type of mutant quirk that affected her only gave her minimal spider characteristics, such as her extra pair of arms and her forehead.
My father's quirk allows him to have every physiology of the hawk moth, giving him increased strength, agility, and endurance. Interestingly, his mutant quirk also gave him minimal to no moth characteristics, with only his forearm. And his weakness was that my father's quirk of Tabaco Hawk Moth required him to smoke. Some of the abilities require a higher dose of nicotine. That sounded like a rather bad downside, considering I had overheard him mentioning that he doesn't like the taste of nicotine. But he does smoke to power his quirk, which I found hilarious.
However, I was still freaking out whenever my mom got near me, but I was handling it better now, now that I knew she wasn't an actual spider woman. However, I still broke out in a cold sweat when seeing her produce silk and craft me something made of Spider string. God, I had never felt so uncomfortable before in my entire life. Despite my severe lack of any social understanding besides my own wants, I could clearly see that she loves me, and I do try to wear them as best as I can. Even if that meant my own comfort, which I pride myself on, was put at a disadvantage.
I had also learnt why we were living in a mansion. My parents were seemingly wealthy business folk, with my father owning a company known as Scorn Industries, and apparently, he named it that because someone had made fun of the previous name, so he decided to be spiteful and name it that. And my mother, obviously, was a woman in the silk business due to her spider-related quirk. While it was nice having rich parents, I didn't want rich parents; I wanted to earn my millions, as any pride and greedy bastard would, but I wasn't looking a gift horse in the mouth. But we are losing track of my life.
Besides that, I had learned that I was also a mutant quirk user, but not like my parents; I didn't inherit their quirks, which explained my strength despite being a child. My mutant quirk was that of the Diabolical Ironclad Beetle. The Diabolical Ironclad Beetle allows me to have every physiology of the ironclad beetle, giving me incredible strength, speed, endurance, defense, and so forth across all physical stats despite my young age. Which explained why I could break the finger of the maid in the suit, without realizing my own strength.
But the trade-off, due to its physical output being immense, put a metabolic strain. Activating or maintaining the armored/conductive combat form consumes a ton of energy. If my stamina drops too low, the armor weakens, slows down, or even partially collapses, leaving me vulnerable. While I did not enjoy having a weakness, due to my conceited nature, I knew that everything had a tradeoff. To me, it was similar to Newton's third law, which clearly states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. And apparently, it was not rare for children not to have Quirks related to their powers.
People in this world can get Quirks unrelated to their parents, even with a Mutant quirk, which often appear as rare events, or sometimes manifest as a completely new combination of the two. Either way, my parents didn't care; they were just happy that I had Quirk. And my mother was especially proud and boastful since I learned early on how to cover myself in black armor, or different body parts. This reaction from her may or may not have fed my ego for weeks after seeing it. And I continued to spend the majority of my time training my quirk rather than interacting with other children my age, which my parents seem to have noticed.
The reason I didn't interact with other children was mainly that it felt wrong. I was too mature, too used to the cruel world of adult life, and didn't want to scare them off. Sure, I consider myself an all-around goodfornothing asshole, but even I had standards, and children were people you don't scare, no matter what. But this led my parents to believe that I had social anxiety, which I did not. I just wasn't good at pretending to be a child or faking emotions that I didn't have. However, this made them decide that I needed a play date, like I was some fucking toddler.
****
"Suck it, I got everything correct." Kenji said loudly, which made Momo look up from her book to see Kenji holding out a piece of paper with his usual arrogance and a smirk on his face. "Got nothing to say, princess?" He asked her and did a fist pump in the air while doing a victory dance. "In your face, you're a loser." He started to laugh like a maniac, and Momo just smiled to herself. It seems that her plan worked, and she managed to get him to actually do his homework by pushing his ego. She has gotten a pretty good handling of him since they met a few weeks ago at their first playdate.
Momo Yaoyorozu was born into a rich family with a powerful Quirk. Due to the vast wealth of her family, she had access to various objects to study and practice within her home as a child, with the Russian matryoshka dolls being her favored tool for Quirk training. And due to her family's wealth, the Kagura family became rather close, forming both a business relationship and bonding with their two heirs, who were Momo herself and Kenji Kagura. Momo wouldn't classify their relationships as friends, but she felt like they were friends due to her understanding of Kenji and his way of thinking.
Kenji was the stereotypical mean boy. He is confident in his family's wealth and connections despite his age, arrogant, mean, and deeply superficial. Which was vastly different from Momo's kind, polite, and relatively reserved nature. When they first met, Kenji clearly wanted nothing to do with Yaoyorozu and was only there because his parents forced him to. She tried to befriend him, but he was all rude and dismissive of her, not willing to even start a conversation, or that was because she learned how to handle him.
When he wouldn't do his homework from school, she would just gently suggest that the questions were too hard, which would make him start answering all the questions in the homework to prove his genius. Or when he was being overly rude to other children, she would say that he wasn't charming enough, and suddenly she found himself practicing charismatic lessons. His deeply conceited nature didn't allow him to figure out what she was doing, and he just wanted to make her a loser. She encourages him in ways that play to his strengths and personality, while he just enjoys being in the spotlight more.
"I'm not a loser." Momo corrected Kenji while watching him dance around her room and smiled to herself. "I think your results are impressive, but." She started but didn't finish, which caught his attention instantly, and he turned his head to her so fast, waiting for an answer. "Your penmanship is rather messy." She bluntly yet politely informed him, and he snatched the papers out of her hands, looking them over. He cursed under his breath after noticing it, before slamming the papers down on the desk, and started rewriting everything.
Kenji muttered curses under his breath while furiously writing and fixing whatever mistake he made. His pride couldn't handle it, and behind him was Momo, who gently kept pointing out mistakes for him to correct, which he did with gritted teeth. Yet despite their difference in attitude, their personality balanced each other out quite well. Momo's kind and police nature kept Kenji rough-edged in check, while his unrelenting confidence and his striving for improvement of himself, admittedly, in a horrible ego-like way, made her have to keep up. Even if Kenji didn't consider Momo a friend, and his refusal to admit any improvement from her suggestions, there was still a closeness between them.
"Hey, why do you even have Russian Dolls?" Kenji asked Momo with a flat and unimpressed tone of voice. Clearly, he wasn't that impressed by her collection of Russian matryoshka dolls. He abandoned his work half-finished, and she just sighed. She had tried to help him with his short attention span, but he clearly only focuses on things that interest him and nothing else. "I understand that your quirk is creation, but why focus on solid items and not chemicals?" He mused at her with an amused tone of voice, thinking it over. "You could easily save energy since Chemicals take less energy to create."
"I mean, you are basically a walking armada." He pointed out to her and threw the doll towards her, making her catch it. "Why create solid objects when you can just make chemicals?" His question had sparked her curiosity and interest. "Hell, you could make magnesium and then light it up for a good explosion." He then shrugged at her, throwing out ideas with little care. "Poison gas, and a mak, powered acid, and then solution, smoke bombs, infrared goggles, maybe even a dart gun for offense. So many combos you can pull off." Momo blinked once, a quiet, thoughtful expression forming as she considered Kenji's barrage of ideas.
"Those are… interesting applications," she said gently, tilting her head and folding her hands in front of her. Her voice was calm and polite — but there was a hint of correction in it, the same tone she used when tutoring classmates or helping others avoid simple mistakes. I let out a dramatic gasp at her police nature. God, how could he be so positive and nice when I was such an asshole? It didn't make any sense, and I guess that explained why she was the only kid who was close to me.
"I focus on physical training and solid objects because that's where I've found the most stable results so far," she continued, choosing her words carefully, and rolled her eyes after hearing my dramatic gasp at her niceness. "Creating chemicals, like acids, gases, or other volatile substances, requires not only an exact understanding of their composition, but also control over how they behave. Without protective measures, you could harm yourself or others unintentionally."
She offered him a small, patient smile — not condescending, just encouraging. "For example, if you wanted to use gas, you'd need to create masks or filtration first, and that's not something you can improvise safely." Her eyes flicked briefly to her matryoshka doll in her hand. "The dolls help me practice fine detail and precision. That builds a strong foundation for more complex creations later."
There was no teasing in her voice, just a measured confidence rooted in knowledge and a desire to help him understand why she did what she did, not just dismiss his ideas outright. And before Kenji could say something dickish again, Kenji could hear his parents calling him. He huffed and walked out of the room, once he left the room. Momo quickly walked over to his papers and pulled out an old paper comparing the two. The newest paper had much better penmanship than the old one, which he had half-caringly written on.
Clearly, his personality hasn't changed since they first met, but her gentle suggestions were affecting him more than he realized. Which made Momo smile gently. While she might not be able to change his personality fully, he will always be himself, at least he was making improvements despite all his annoyance about her and her suggestions. He just couldn't live with somehow being less than what he considered great in his eyes.
****
"I'm so tired." I groan loudly to my dad, who was looking down at me, as I lay on the training ground area. We had only been training for half an hour, and I was already too tired to move. I had never trained before in my entire previous life; I was always average. Now, training as a six-year-old was not something I was looking forward to. Meanwhile, my father, Riku Kagura, gave me one of the flattest expressions ever. He probably thought I was being dramatic, and he was right, but I wasn't going to admit that to him; I was too prideful.
The reason for my trying is mainly that I decided that I would become a hero, not because of any selfless reason, but purely because I wanted to be famous and rich. I had spent the past few weeks since learning about heroes' training. I learned mainly through reading in the news what heroes were, and it was pretty standard stuff: they are the good guys, they get paid for their work, the more popular you are, the more money you get, and so forth. Sure, all of them were probably heroes because they wanted to make a good change in the world. Not that I cared, I only wanted the fame and riches of being a hero.
I had done extensive research, and what I mean by research is essentially just Google, don't you dare judge me. Apparently, Pro heroes earn significant money, ranging from millions to billions for top-tier figures such as All Might, Endeavor, and so forth. They are primarily through government contracts, popularity-driven endorsement, commercials, and running their own agencies with sidekicks. Honestly, I thought it sounded like too much work, but just imagining all the fans that I would have driven my ego into overdrive, and I decided to try and take it seriously. Despite my having no real heroic motive behind it.
"My dear boy, we barely started training." My father said with a chuckle and patted my head while I huffed loudly. As he looked down at me, he couldn't help but notice how remarkably similar I looked to my mother, same blonde hair, blue eyes, and the same light tanned skin. He then picked me up with ease by my collar, planting my feet on the ground, and I shook myself out of his grip. "Now, let's start over again. How long can you maintain your form?" He gave me an encouraging pat on my back, and I nodded, despite hating the fact that I was covered in sweat. And I grabbed some high-calorie bars and stuffed my face before returning to training.
I then got back into a stance, my lower body in a stable position, and my hands clasped together. At a fast rate, my body was covered in a lean black armor when I activated my quirk. The armor was lean and form-fitting, not bulky like other armor, but seemingly made for battle, and fitting my arms. I had learnt to create armor instinctually and at a fast rate. In addition, I can manually shift how much I need. From partial to full clad in accordance with the situation. Surrounds my entire body with extremely defensive armor. My face is completely in a black armor mask with glowing orange eyes. I had mandibles on my head. But I had honestly no idea why my eyes glowed orange in this form, but I didn't care enough to figure it out.
I focused my attention on controlling this form and tried my best to keep it at full power for as long as I could. As a Toddler, I didn't exactly have the greatest stamina, and due to this, my form was hard to maintain for an extensive amount of time, but that was the reason I was trying it. And I had quickly figured out that the best way to counterbalance the weakness that my quirk had was buying and stuffing my face with the highest-calorie bars. The bars provided me with the essential energy I needed for my quirk, which put a strain on my metabolic system. And since I burn energy through my quirk, the more calories I had, the more time I had in this form.
"Good, now come to me." My dad said calmly and pulled down his sleeves to get ready for combat, before I launched myself at him. I threw a punch at his face, but missed completely, due to my short arms, and fell onto my face. There was a moment of silence before Riku laughed loudly and held onto his stomach. "Oh my god, you should have seen the look on your face." He cackled loudly, and the servants turned around to see what was happening. And I growled loudly, my face still on the ground.
I then jumped up from the ground and tried to punch him while he was open. But a spider web wrapped around me, and picked me up into the air before I landed in the arms of my mother, Aiko Kagura. She flicked my nose, and I shuddered, not because of the nose flick but once again because of her spider abilities. I really need a way to get over my phobia of spiders, because this was ridiculous. As I shivered, she assumed that I was cold and snapped her fingers before a servant came with a blanket to wrap me in it.
"You shouldn't try and jump your father." She scolded me gently and with a smirk on her face after watching the scene from a distance. "We can't have our future hero acting so dishonorable." She said that while stepping on my father's stomach to get over him. He let out an overly dramatic gasp of betrayal as she carried me back to the estate. "If you beat him, he is going to cry himself to sleep." It was at that moment my father decided he has enough of the slander and answered back jokingly.
"I never cried once."
"You cried when you watched Grave of the Fireflies."
"That is totally different, and you know it."
It was true, he cried like a baby when watching that animated movie, and I had to admit, I also cried a lot. It was such a heartbreaking movie that even with all my flaws and issues, I couldn't hold back either. But that was besides the point, as my mother carried me into our estate, she dropped me back to the floor, and I quirky ran up the stairs to take a bat. I wanted to get all the sweat from the training off me, so I could focus on just relaxing and do nothing for the rest of the day.
But as I took a bath in the hot water, it made me wonder what the future held for me. Honestly, despite everything, I was rather enjoying my new life and had a clear understanding of the world since I first got reborn. With that said, I sank into the warm water to just relax before the next day. With my dream of being a hero, while still far away from my grasp, felt closer after today's training, which was nice and good for me. I would still give it my all, since I wanted as much money as possible, and would try to be a good hero despite my selfish reasons.
But I did wonder what it would be like, being a hero. I never thought about it, and wondered how heroes acted. Surely, not all of them were selfless and doing it for the good of the world; surely, it has to be people like me. Well, I would just need to meet them and confirm my thoughts, but that was a job for another day. With those thoughts, the water blocked the light of the lightbulb, and I submerged myself in the water, letting it take over my senses for the evening.