Chapter 1: The Gentle Monolith
The air in the fourth-grade classroom of Musutafu Elementary always smelled of chalk dust, eraser friction, and the chaotic energy of thirty children discovering their superpowers. It was a loud, vibrant ecosystem of sparks, floating pencils, and minor mutations.
But in the back row, near the window, there was a mountain of silence.
Bartholomew Kuma did not fit. In a literal sense, he had long since outgrown the standard-issue desks provided by the school district. His knees pressed awkwardly against the underside of the wood, and his shoulders were so broad that they eclipsed the view of the blackboard for anyone unfortunate enough to sit behind him. He was a child in age, yet he possessed the heavy, blocky frame of a creature built for endurance, not for frantic playground games of tag.
He sat with perfect posture, his large hands resting gently on a thick, hardcover book titled The Great Atlas of the World. His hands were remarkable. Set into his palms were distinct, soft pink elevations resembling the paw pads of a bear. They looked deceptive—harmless, even cute. Yet, they were the conduit for his Quirk.
"Hey, check it out," whispered a boy with extendable fingers, nudging his neighbor. "The statue is breathing."
Kuma blinked behind his small, circular glasses. He heard them, of course. His hearing was as sharp as his silence was deep.
"I bet if you poke him, he won't even feel it," giggled a girl whose hair was made of blue vines. "He's too thick."
This was the daily ritual. Kuma's Quirk, Paw Pad, was a permanent physical mutation, but its power was voluntary. Unlike some classmates whose energies leaked uncontrollably, Kuma's ability to repel—to reject the world around him—was a choice. It was a heavy responsibility for a ten-year-old: the constant, conscious decision not to push everything away.
He was just too big, too quiet, and possessed a latent, visible power that unnerved them.
"Watch this," the boy with the fingers grinned. He balled up a piece of notebook paper, hardened it with a bit of saliva, and flicked it with enhanced precision toward the back of the room.
The projectile sailed through the air, aimed squarely at the back of Kuma's head.
Kuma didn't flinch visibly. He merely sensed the incoming object. With a speed that belied his massive, stationary frame, his left hand twitched upward behind his head. It was a precise, practiced interception. The pad on his palm made fleeting contact with the incoming missile.
Pop.
The air pressure shifted instantly. The paper wad didn't just stop; it reversed trajectory with comedic violence, shooting back across the room and smacking the thrower directly on the forehead.
The class erupted into laughter. It wasn't malicious laughter—not the cruel, jagged kind that scars the soul—but it was the laughter of an audience watching a circus attraction. To them, Kuma wasn't a classmate; he was a physics experiment, a walking bouncy castle that they desperately wanted to see activate.
"He did it again!" someone shouted. "Kuma-chan is a deflector shield!"
"Boing-Boing-Man!" another chanted.
Kuma's expression remained unchanged. A stoic, unreadable mask. He kept his hands flat on the desk, the powerful pads facing downward. He didn't find it funny, nor did he find it hurtful enough to cry. He simply existed, enduring the noise of the small people around him. He carefully adjusted his glasses, his face turning back toward the front of the room as the teacher slammed a ruler against the chalkboard.
"Settle down! All of you!"
The teacher, a frazzled man whose minor telekinesis was barely enough to keep the chalk from breaking, sighed heavily. He scanned the room, looking for someone reliable to restore the academic atmosphere. His eyes landed on the massive figure in the back. The only student who wasn't laughing. The only one who looked like he carried the weight of the world on his oversized shoulders.
"Let's get back to the text," the teacher said, adjusting his tie. "Page forty-two. We need a strong voice for this passage."
The room went quiet. The teacher pointed to the back corner.
"Bartholomew Kuma. Please stand and read for the class."
The sound of his full name seemed to suck the air out of the room. It was a long name, heavy and rhythmic, lacking the snappy brevity of names like Bakugo or Midoriya. It sounded like the name of a historical monument, not a ten-year-old boy.
The chair creaked—a sound like a dying tree—as Kuma stood up. He rose, and rose, and rose. Even at this age, he towered over the teacher. The shadow he cast stretched across two rows of desks.
He lifted the textbook with massive hands, the pink pads on his palms stark against his dark skin, holding the pages with surprising delicacy.
"Page forty-two," Kuma said.
His voice was a deep, resonant bass, startlingly mature for a prepubescent throat. It vibrated in the chests of the students nearest to him. The giggling stopped completely. When Kuma spoke, the comedic atmosphere vanished, replaced by an odd, heavy gravity.
He began to read, his enunciation slow and deliberate, " 'The foundation of our society is built upon the mutual cooperation of individuals...' "
As he read, he looked down at the words, but his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking about the Atlas on his desk. He was thinking about how far away the rest of the world was, and how, despite being the largest thing in the room, he felt entirely invisible.