The metal door to the roof didn't slammed against the concrete wall with a violent crack.
Three second-year students swaggered out, their uniforms unbuttoned and their expressions twisted into that classic "we own the place" sneer.
The one in the middle, a thick-necked kid with fingers that flickered with small, orange sparks, spat on the ground.
"Well, well. If it isn't the walking corpse," Sparky sneered, his eyes locking onto Haruto. "I heard the hospital finally got tired of looking at your face and kicked you out. You should've stayed in the bed, Akagi. At least there, the nurses pretend to like you."
The floating uniform beside Haruto stiffened.
The sleeves of Toru's blazer dropped to her sides, the fabric trembling with a mix of shock and fear.
"Hey! That's super mean!" Toru's voice squeaked, though she sounded more like she was scolding a naughty puppy than facing down bullies. "He's just eating his lunch! Leave him alone!"
The bullies paused, their eyes darting to the floating clothes. Sparky let out a bark of laughter. "Oh look, 'Invisible Freak' is playing hero. What are you gonna do? Catch a cold at us? Go hide in a locker before we trip you."
Haruto didn't move. He didn't even stop chewing.
He slowly swallowed the last of his yakisoba bun, wiped his mouth with the back of his
hand, and looked directly into the "camera" with a weary sigh.
"And here we go. The low-level thugs arrive to establish the protagonist's combat viability. Honestly, it's a bit derivative. Could we at least get some dramatic background music? A little heavy metal, maybe?"
He turned his gaze toward Sparky, his eyes suddenly losing their childhood warmth and turning into two chips of cold—the look of a man who had ended lives in another world.
"You've got a three-second window," Haruto said, his voice dropping an octave. "One: apologize to the lady for being a cliché. Two: leave the roof. Three: I don't have a three. I just really want to see if my new knuckles work as well as the brochure promised."
"You Quirkless piece of—!"
Sparky lunged, his hand igniting with a sharp pop-crack as he aimed a fiery palm right for Haruto's chest.
Haruto didn't flinch.
To his Reboot-enhanced brain, Sparky was moving in slow motion, his form telegraphing every amateurish mistake.
Haruto stepped inside the guard, his movement a blur of efficiency. He grabbed Sparky's wrist, redirected the momentum with a sickeningly smooth twist, and drove his palm into the bully's solar plexus.
Oof!
Sparky hit the concrete like a sack of wet flour, clutching his stomach and gasping for air that wouldn't come.
"System Check: Physical strength is currently at 'Middle-School Nightmare' levels. Speed is... satisfactory for now," Haruto narrated to the void as the other two bullies froze in terror.
Sparky was still gasping on the concrete, clutching his stomach, but his two lackeys were finally shaking off their initial shock.
The one with the buzzed hair raised a fist that glowed with a sickly green light, while the third lunged forward with fingers elongated into wooden talons.
"You're dead, Akagi!" the buzzed one roared.
Haruto didn't even drop his casual stance. He just let out a sharp exhale.
"Three seconds. That's the budget for this scene. Any longer and we're just padding for time."
Second One:
As the glowing fist swung toward his jaw, Haruto stepped into the attacker's "dead zone". He caught the bully's extended arm, used his momentum against him, and delivered a brutal elbow strike to the bridge of his nose.
Second Two:
Without pausing, Haruto pivoted on his heel, ducking under the wooden talons of the third boy. He reached out, grabbed the kid's collar, and slammed his forehead into the bully's chin with a sickening clack of teeth.
Second Three:
Before the bodies could even hit the deck, Haruto grabbed both boys by their belts and heaved. He tossed them directly onto the still-groaning Sparky.
The result was a tangled, pathetic pile of second-years, stacked like wood in the center of the rooftop.
He walked over to her, his steps light and predatory. "So, still want to be friends with the guy who just turned the school bullies into a human pile? Or is this where you run away and tell the teacher I'm a 'Scary Quirkless Monster'?"
Haruto stood over the groaning pile of bullies, his chest heaving. To anyone else, he looked like a top-tier combatant who had just effortlessly cleared a room.
But to Haruto—the man who had lived through a thousand life-or-death skirmishes—the feedback from his own nervous system was screaming a different story.
His vision blurred for a split second, a sharp, ringing hum vibrating in his ears.
'Wait,' he thought, his smirk faltering as he looked down at his trembling right hand.
'System check. Something's... desynced.'
He tried to ball his fist again, but his fingers felt like they were made of lead.
The "Reboot" had given him the reflexes and the technical knowledge of a master mercenary, but it was currently housed in the frame of a sick eleven-year-old boy.
The mind was a Ferrari engine; the body was a rusted-out go-kart.
The elbow strike he'd delivered to the first bully had cracked the kid's nose, sure—but Haruto could feel the dull, throbbing ache in his own joint where the impact had rattled his brittle bones.
His lungs, though "healed," felt tight, struggling to keep up with the explosive output his brain had just demanded.
"Oh, that's just great," Haruto muttered "his voice cracking slightly with exhaustion. "The software is running at 120 FPS, but the hardware is overheating on the loading screen. If that fight had lasted ten more seconds, my heart would have probably staged a formal protest and left the building."
"Haruto? Are you okay?" Toru's uniform drifted closer, the sleeves reaching out tentatively. "You're shaking! Is it... is it your heart? Should I call a teacher?"
"No," Haruto snapped.
He leaned heavily against the chain-link fence, the metal rattling under his weight.
The Healing Factor was working—he could feel the "construction crew" in his chest frantically repairing the micro-tears in his muscles—but it couldn't magically grant him the three years of physical conditioning he'd missed while hooked up to an IV.
'Note to self: The 'Invincible Mercenary' gimmick has a very short battery life,' he thought, his eyes narrowing.
' I'm a glass cannon. One good hit from a real Quirk —not these middle-school chumps—and I'll shatter into a million pieces. The 'Plot Armor' is currently held together by duct tape and wishful thinking.'
He turned to Toru, forcing a weak, crooked grin. "I'm fine, Ghost-chan. Just a bit of 'post-game lag.' Turns out, jumping straight from a hospital bed into a three-on-one brawl is a great way to remind yourself that you're basically made of twigs and optimism right now."
'I need a gym' he thought, 'And a lot of protein. If I'm going to survive the first major arc, I need this body to stop acting like it's made of wet tissue paper.'
***
School ended.
He was now walking back home, besides him a floating school uniform, the socks hit the pavement with a cheerful click-clac and the empty sleeves of the blazer swung back and forth like a pendulum of pure hype.
"That was so cool, Haruto! Seriously! The way you went whoosh and then bam!" Toru chirped.
"And then you just stacked them! Like cordwood! I didn't even know you could stack people! Is that a martial art? Is it called 'People Stacking'?"
Haruto was walking considerably slower than he had that morning. Every joint in his body felt like it had been replaced with rusted hinges.
'Note to the developers: 'The Cool Finisher' move has a massive stamina debuff,' Haruto thought, wiping a thin trail of sweat from his temple.
'I'm currently running on 2% battery. If a stray cat tries to mug us right now, I'm just going to lie down and accept my fate.'
He looked over at the floating clothes. 'And look at my co-star. She's got infinite MP and hasn't stopped talking since the rooftop. I think I accidentally recruited the 'Energetic Sidekick' type. My ears might give out before my legs do.'
"Are you even listening?" Toru bounced in front of him, walking backward with an effortless grace that made Haruto's weak knees jealous. "I was thinking, since we're like, a team now we should probably have a secret base. Or at least a favorite crepe stand! Oh! There's a place near the station that has strawberry whipped cream and—"
"Toru-chan," Haruto interrupted, his voice raspy. He stopped walking and leaned his weight against a light pole, his chest heaving.
The uniform stopped mid-skip. The sleeves dropped, the blazer tilting in a gesture of concern. "Haruto? You're doing the 'shaking thing' again. Is it the medical stuff?"
"It's just... physical therapy stuff," Haruto wheezed.
He leaned his head back against the cold wood of the pole, closing his eyes for a second to let the static in his vision clear.
'I can't exactly tell her I've been 'rebooted' by a cosmic system and have the combat data of a veteran mercenary stored in a body that's mostly hospital Jell-O.'
He forced his breathing to steady, then pushed off the pole with a grunt, shifting the weight of his bag. He needed to change the subject before she started asking about his heart rate or calling an ambulance.
"Anyway," he said, nodding toward the convenience store on the corner. "Enough about my 'tragic backstory' stats. Since you've officially appointed yourself my sidekick, you should probably know that a protagonist's energy is fueled by high-quality snacks. Does that place still have those limited-edition melon pans, or did the NPCs buy them all out already?"
Toru's uniform bounced, her concern instantly evaporating into pure excitement.
"Oh! The ones with the strawberry filling?! They're totally still there! But you have to get there before four or the sports clubs swoop in like a pack of hungry wolves!"
She skipped ahead of him, her white socks flashing against the pavement. "If we hurry, I can snag two while you're still walking at 'grandpa speed!' But you're paying."
"Fine, fine," he called out, picking up his pace just a fraction. "But if they're sold out, you're the one who has to explain to my stomach why we're failing our first mission."
"Mission accepted!" Toru cheered, throwing an invisible peace sign into the air.