The air was humid, heavy with the scent of turned earth and wet grass after a light rain that had fallen hours earlier. The makeshift training ground remained secluded from the city, hidden among trees and abandoned structures that prevented any curious hero or ddleso civilian from stumbling upon them by accident.
At that hour, with the sky slowly darkening over Musutafu, the place seed even more isolated.
Reiji adjusted the bandages on his hands as he took a couple of steps back on the damp ground, looking for a better space to move. His breathing remained completely steady even though they had been training for quite a while.
In front of him, Himiko was panting in an attempt to catch her breath.
She no longer lunged impulsively as she had months ago. Her movents had ceased to rely solely on instinct and aggression; now there was a certain technique behind them. She was still emotional—too emotional at tis—but the Heroes' Course was polishing sothing that had always existed within her.
Talent.
An absurd one.
She had even learned to control her thirst for blood even better, and Himiko continued to develop into a prodigy of hand-to-hand combat. The more she trained, the more evident it beca that much of her ability had never stemd solely from her impulses.
In just a few months, the gap between them had narrowed considerably. That was obvious, considering a level one doesn't progress at the sa pace as a level one hundred, but even so, she was skipping too many stages with ease.
But it still wasn't enough. Reiji knew she could do better.
"Co on, Toga," he called calmly, using her surna as he always did when it was sothing serious. A small, subtle difference, but with a clear intention.
She barely raised her head as a crooked smile slowly spread across her lips.
"You asked for it."
And she launched herself.
The first exchanges were fast and physical. Himiko attacked with much more precision than before, using changes of pace and feints to force him to constantly react, but Reiji was still reading her too well. He deflected blows with minimal movent, blocked exactly where he needed to, and imdiately punished every opening he found.
She made it look easy, but she had been constantly training her reflexes over the past few months as well. And he knew her very well, too, how she breathed before a powerful attack, how she shifted her weight to her left leg when she wanted to change direction, and how she barely tensed her shoulders when she planned to use a feint.
Himiko slowly began to grow frustrated.
And then she changed her approach.
She brought one of the small blood tubes to her mouth as she took only a few steps back. Reiji automatically tensed so of his muscles, preparing to see his own reflection in front of him again.
It was sothing relatively normal by now.
But when the transformation finally stabilized…
it wasn't him who appeared before him.
It was Nejire Hado.
The physical change was exact.
Blue hair falling in long, soft curls, large, bright eyes full of energy, and features so perfectly mimicked that for a second Reiji's brain actually needed to readjust to rember that he was still looking at Himiko.
But it wasn't just the body.
The posture changed.
The expression changed.
Even the way she tilted her head slightly while smiling seed straight out of Nejire's.
"Surprised, Reiji?" she asked in that light, curious tone so characteristic of the third-year student, as she twirled slightly as if showing him a new outfit.
The visual impact was imdiate.
Himiko's training clothes weren't made for a body like Nejire's, and that made certain areas too tight. Combined with the naturally intrusive personality that Himiko was deliberately mimicking, the result was uncomfortably effective.
Reiji didn't respond.
He simply returned to his fighting stance.
She smiled slightly wider when she noticed this.
And attacked again.
The physical difference significantly altered the fight. The longer legs changed the reach of her kicks, the different balance modified certain turns, and the center of gravity itself made so movents more unpredictable during the first few seconds.
She used her body shifting skills effectively to change the style of combat.
But she was still Himiko.
The mind behind the body hadn't changed.
And Reiji adapted once again.
He deflected a spinning kick, caught one of her arms before she could use the full montum, and forced her back with a blow to the abdon that completely disrupted the rhythm of her offense.
She imdiately recovered.
The fight continued for several more minutes until a simple mistake occurred.
A misstep.
An imperfect weight shift.
They both ended up falling onto the damp ground after an exchange that was too close.
The impact kicked up so dust and wet leaves around them.
And when Reiji opened his eyes, Nejire's face was staring down at him.
Too close.
Her blue hair fell around them both as part of Himiko's body remained resting on top of him. One of her legs was still trapped between Reiji's, and the pressure of his chest against hers was too obvious to ignore.
Reiji hated admitting it, even to himself, but he was still a teenager. His body reacted like anyone else's under certain circumstances, and having Nejire Hado literally lying on top of him in incredibly tight clothing, her face so charming, staring at him, gave him slight trouble.
Trouble that Reiji imdiately nipped in the bud.
The blood in his body readjusted precisely as soon as he felt the slightest reaction appear, preventing any undesirable bodily response.
And yet, Himiko noticed.
She didn't move imdiately; in fact, she carefully shifted her body, using Reiji as a support, and crossed her arms, resting them near his neck, and smiled at him.
Carefully gauging his facial reaction.
"You know…" she finally murmured, her soft voice just inches away. "When I don't look like myself, it's much easier to be like this."
Reiji held her gaze without replying.
Because he knew perfectly well where the conversation was headed.
"Maybe…" she continued, her voice slightly lower. "If I didn't have my face, there wouldn't be a problem with us being siblings."
The sentence ca out disguised as a joke.
But it wasn't.
There was too much intention behind it.
Too much honesty hidden within sothing seemingly casual.
Reiji remained completely calm despite being painfully aware of the entire situation. Of the contact, of the body on top of him, and of how absurdly dangerous Himiko beca when she started mixing real emotions with deliberate provocation.
Then he finally spoke.
"Himiko."
His voice was calm.
Serious.
And that was enough for her to imdiately understand the tone.
"We haven't spoken about this in weeks," he continued, his gaze fixed on her. "Because I thought you'd already understood that it's a closed matter."
Nejire's smile faltered slightly.
Just a little.
But enough.
Reiji took advantage of the small space that appeared between them to slowly stand up as she finally reversed the transformation. The blue hair disappeared, and the real Himiko reappeared before him in the soft light of the setting sun.
This ti, he didn't insist.
He didn't argue.
He simply lowered his gaze for a few seconds before standing up as well.
"I know," she murmured, brushing the dirt off her pants. "I just wanted to check sothing."
Reiji properly adjusted his gloves without imdiately replying.
She watched him for just a mont longer before walking toward one of the water bottles they had left near the trees.
The silence between them wasn't as tense as it had been months before, but there was still a brief, awkward silence.
Himiko opened the bottle and took a sip of water with her back to him.
And yet, Reiji managed to hear her murmur, barely audible beneath her breath.
"With a different face… you almost forgot I'm still ."
The boy slowly closed his eyes for a mont before letting out a small, tired exhalation. He decided to ignore it. They hadn't touched on the subject for months, and apparently, it was fine. Maybe if he maintained his stance and avoided the topic for a few more months, the problem would disappear.
Then he went back on guard.
"Five more minutes and we'll continue."
Himiko barely turned her head toward him.
And this ti, the small smile that appeared on her face was much calr.
***
Dagobah Beach was a landfill forgotten by the city.
Mountains of trash covered the damp sand as far as the eye could see: rusted refrigerators, broken televisions, half-buried tires, and black bags ripped open by stray animals that spilled waste everywhere. The constant sll of salt mixed with rot and burnt plastic made it hard to even take a deep breath.
Nobody went there.
Nobody wanted to.
And yet, for the past few months, three teenagers had slowly begun to change the place.
Reiji dug his shovel under a sticky mass of seaweed mixed with crushed bottles before tossing it into an industrial bag that was already nearly full. Sweat trickled down his neck as he watched out of the corner of his eye as Izuku laboriously dragged an old, rusty wheel several ters away. He wore a green cap backward, oversized gardening gloves, and an absurdly lively expression despite the heat and the awful sll that perated the entire beach.
Further back, Shinso was picking up shards of glass with tal tweezers while muttering sothing about infectious diseases and how he'd end up dying because of Midoriya.
It was strange to think about how they'd ended up there.
The idea had been entirely Izuku's.
After the festival, they'd beco friends, even joining each other's U.A. training later on.
One day, during one of their physical training sessions, he showed up with a notebook full of notes, makeshift schedules, and photos of Dagobah printed from the internet. He'd started nervously talking about pollution, social responsibility, and how heroes always seed to wait for a tragedy to happen before intervening.
Then he simply said,
"I don't have a Quirk to beco a hero, but I think this can help a lot of people."
Reiji initially thought it was stupid; he didn't even rember that in the original story, it was the very beach Izuku cleaned on his own during All Might's training, until he finally rembered after weeks.
Shinso bluntly said it sounded like unpaid community service.
But Izuku kept at it.
He showed up every day with new plans, new ideas, and a conviction so ridiculously genuine that it slowly beca difficult to ignore him. There was sothing strange about Midoriya; even without a Quirk, he still moved like soone convinced he could change things if he worked hard enough.
And in the end… they both ended up showing up.
And then it just beca routine.
"Did you know this beach appears in old tourist records of Musutafu?" Izuku asked as he finally set the wheel down next to a pile of classified tal. "Decades ago, this was one of the most visited places in this area."
"How inspiring," Shinso murmured as he lifted a bag full of broken glass. "Now it slls like a damp corpse."
"Technically, the sll cos from accumulated organic matter."
"Midoriya."
"Yes?"
"Shut up."
Izuku let out a small, embarrassed laugh as he imdiately returned to his work.
Reiji silently observed the scene for a few seconds, wiping so of the sweat from his neck with his forearm.
Ti had passed quickly.
Much faster than he expected.
The months without a consistent investigation, or with the committee constantly asking him for favors, had flown by, and now his entrance exam to U.A. was only weeks away.
And he had prepared for the entrance exam all this ti.
Cleaning wasn't just physical training. It kept his mind occupied, temporarily banishing the constant thoughts about the future and allowing him to experience sothing he hadn't truly had for a long ti in either his past or this life:
Normalcy.
Even friendship still felt new to him.
Hawks was probably the closest person he had besides Himiko, but that relationship had started out of obligation, only to later beco genuine. In his previous life, not even his own father knew how to treat him like a real person, much less a son.
Shinso and Izuku were different.
With Shinso, it all started almost by accident. Reiji initially approached him by accident, really. But the more they trained together, the more evident it beca that Hitoshi was far more observant and consistent than he let on. His constant sarcasm masked years of isolation and social rejection because of a Quirk that too many people considered "villainous."
And yet he kept trying to beco a hero.
That was sothing Reiji genuinely respected.
Izuku was even stranger.
A Quirkless boy who kept throwing himself headlong into anything he considered right, even though the entire world seed specifically designed to tell him he couldn't. Reiji found a certain uncomfortable irony in that; in his past life, he had been destroyed precisely for possessing special abilities, while Midoriya had been ostracized for having none.
And yet, they both perfectly understood what it was like to feel out of place.
Three oddballs.
Three people who probably would never have ended up together under normal circumstances.
And yet there they were, cleaning an abandoned beach as the sun slowly began to disappear behind mountains of trash.
"Hey!" Izuku suddenly exclaid, pointing to an area ahead. "I think we found another patch of sand!"
Shinso stared at the small, clean strip visible among the debris and let out a tired sigh.
"...I can't believe that actually motivates ."
Reiji finally set his shovel down on a pile of bags before looking around.
The difference was starting to show.
There was still a lot of work to be done, but entire sections of the beach were already visible again. The sand was slowly reappearing from beneath decades of neglect, and the coastline was beginning to regain its shape.
Izuku smiled as soon as he noticed them both observing the result.
Reiji picked up his shovel again as his thoughts inevitably returned to sothing that had been nagging at him for months.
It was strange.
Too strange.
Even without All Might personally training Midoriya, Dagobah was still being cleaned exactly as he rembered. Although so things happened regardless, others didn't.
And that bothered him.
Because he had already changed too many things.
Far more than he initially thought possible.
And yet… certain threads of fate seed to insist on remaining intact, even though the circumstances that had triggered them had changed.
The idea was as fascinating as it was unsettling.
But in the end, as he watched Izuku argue with Shinso because one was missorting the recyclables and the other clearly had no intention of learning, Reiji let out a small exhaled breath through his nose.
Because if there really was such a thing as fate… then he himself was living proof that it could be broken.
***
It had all started several weeks ago, during one of the many afternoons i Hatsu had decided to turn the support workshop into an impromptu testing ground.
Reiji didn't even rember exactly how he ended up agreeing that ti. It was probably due to the excess of free ti he'd accumulated, or simply because i had an absurd ability to drag people into her experints before they could properly refuse.
That afternoon, the workshop was more chaotic than usual. There were tal parts scattered on the floor, smoke escaping from a table in the back, and at least two partially destroyed prototypes hanging from magnetic mounts while i ran back and forth adjusting cables.
"Perfect! You arrived just as I finished the calibration!" she exclaid as soon as she saw him enter, lifting an enormous tool completely out of proportion to her size. "I need to test an internal conduction system for active Quirks with high biological circulation."
Reiji studied the device for a few seconds.
...That didn't sound particularly safe."
"Of course it is! Well... probably."
And before he could respond with anything more intelligent, i was already pushing him toward a tal chair covered in sensors.
The experint, in theory, was simple.
The device aid to asure how a body reacted under constant Quirk activation in short, prolonged intervals—sothing useful for future adaptive support suits. In Reiji's case, the procedure consisted solely of repeatedly activating his ability using minimal amounts of blood for extended periods to record internal variations.
At first, there were no problems.
One drop.
Activation.
Deactivation.
Again.
The process continued for almost an hour as i frantically took notes and adjusted paraters on several screens filled with biotric data.
Until Reiji's body began to react.
Prolonged exposure to the constant use of blood was slowly altering his system, progressively awakening his hunger even with minimal amounts.
Reiji was able to endure it and then manage to solve the problem himself—that's what i noticed imdiately.
Because the machines literally started flooding with alerts.
"Your blood pressure just spiked..." she murmured, quickly scanning the graphs. "And your nervous system activity too."
Reiji slowly closed one hand, trying to steady his breathing.
"Stop the test."
i imdiately looked up.
"Is this a side effect of your Quirk?" she asked, much more seriously this ti.
Reiji took a few seconds to answer.
"...Yes."
i was already noticing how her fingers were trembling, just enough to be noticeable, and how Reiji's gaze instinctively shifted to a small, recent cut on one of her hands, the result of working with tools all day.
i picked up a small precision tool from the table and made a superficial cut on one of her fingers without even changing her expression.
When it ca to science, everything else seed insignificant.
Including pain...
Reiji imdiately looked up at her.
"i."
"Relax. It was just a superficial cut."
A small drop of blood slowly appeared on her finger.
And Reiji's body reacted instantly.
"So it does directly affect your biological urges..." she murmured, analyzing her reaction. "Your body associates excessive use of the Quirk with an imdiate need for replenishnt."
"That's one way to put it..." Reiji revealed, maintaining control. "I need blood, it doesn't matter whose it is, it relieves the urge."
"Interesting..." Before Reiji could say anything else, i moved the cut closer to him, he made himself more sensitive to the blood flow more quickly. "Here, drink my blood."
Reiji was about to refuse, but seeing the blood dripping onto the floor, going to waste, he slowly grasped i's wrist and let the drops trickle down her throat.
When the sensation finally subsided, Reiji released i's hand almost instantly, looking away with obvious annoyance at himself.
"...I'm sorry."
i watched the small cut slowly closing thanks to a regenerative cream she'd already applied before he'd even finished speaking.
"That was incredible."
Reiji stared at her, completely incredulous.
"Are you aware of how dangerous this is?"
"Of course! Your Quirk doesn't just alter your body physically; it also creates a progressive tabolic dependency linked to continuous use. That explains a lot!"
She was already frantically writing notes again.
"i."
"Besides, you didn't really lose control. Your body reached a specific physiological limit and reacted exactly like soone with severe hypoglycemia craving sugar. That could also be because you know your own limits, right?"
Reiji remained silent, nodding slowly.
Because technically... it made sense.
And that was probably the worst part.
From that day on, i began to obsess over the problem.
She spent weeks researching studies on neural regulation, adaptive biodical engineering, and mutation support systems for complex Quirks. Every ti Reiji showed up at the workshop, she ended up asking him new questions about symptoms, bodily reactions, and activation patterns.
Until she finally called him again.
"It wasn't easy," he admitted, holding one of her wrists inside the workshop several weeks later. "Your case doesn't really fit into any standard category."
On the table rested a discreet-looking tal bracelet. Compact, elegant, and small enough to go unnoticed even during combat.
"I initially considered a hormone limiter, but it wouldn't work. Your impulses don't stem from it. They're independent tabolic responses directly linked to Quirk activation," he explained, adjusting small internal parts of the device. "So I ended up combining neural regulation systems with biotric feedback technology."
Reiji studied the bracelet for a few seconds.
"And that ans...?"
"This thing constantly monitors your biological activity and detects when you start approaching a dangerous peak," i replied with obvious pride. "When that happens, it releases small electrical and chemical stimuli to stabilize certain nerve responses before the urge escalates too much."
Reiji barely raised an eyebrow.
"Are you saying you muzzled with technology?"
i smiled imdiately.
"I'm saying you're too weird to use normal solutions."
And before he could reply, she was already placing the bracelet on him.
The cool tal adjusted around his wrist with a slight magnetic click. Light. Comfortable. Barely noticeable.
"What if it malfunctions?"
"It shouldn't. But even if it does, it will give you several minutes' buffer before you reach the limit," he replied, checking data on a screen. "It doesn't turn off your Quirk. It just stabilizes the side effects to keep you functional. In any case, you'll need a source to quell the urge."
Reiji silently observed the bracelet for a few more seconds.
The re fact that there was now a way to partially reduce his impulses brought him more peace than he had felt in years.
"I didn't think you'd figure sothing like this out so quickly."
i continued adjusting tools without looking directly at him.
"It's not a complete solution. Just a clever patch," she murmured. "However, I'll find a way. After all, I'm i Hatsu! Japan's future greatest inventor!"
Reiji didn't reply imdiately.
He simply looked back at the bracelet on his wrist.
"Thank you..."
***
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