The sheer, unadulterated tedium of it all was a special kind of torture.
Four years. Four years of pastel-colored walls and saccharine posters reminding children to "Use Your Quirk Responsibly!" Four years of teachers who spoke with the tone one reserves for small animals, and classmates whose highest aspiration was a glittering sticker slapped on their foreheads.
At eight years old, I was a king forced to hold court in a sandbox.
The ride to school was its own small hell. The Donquixote limousine was an island of silence, glass partition humming faintly between me and the world outside. Towers of steel and glass blurred past, monuments to human ambition—reminders that progress existed, just not inside the gilded cage they called my "primary academy."
My driver, Kato, was a man of great skill and greater restraint. He never asked questions, never offered small talk. That alone made him more useful than 90% of the population.
"Have a… productive day, Young Master Doflamingo," he said when we stopped at the gates. The hesitation before the word productive carried a wealth of implication.
"I shall endeavor to survive the intellectual famine," I replied smoothly, straightening the cuffs of my blazer. The Donquixote crest gleamed on the breast pocket, as if mocking me with its symbolism. Royalty among cattle.
The classroom greeted me with the same cacophony as always: shrill laughter, the clatter of pencils, a child trying and failing to levitate a chair with his quirk. Controlled chaos, but not controlled by anyone competent. I made my way to my desk in the back, a territory long ago ceded to me through a mixture of intimidation and indifference. Children, like animals, sensed predators—even when the predator was smiling.
Except for one.
Yaoyorozu Momo was already seated, her books aligned with surgical precision. Our relationship had become… interesting. She didn't bore me, which was an achievement in itself. She asked questions worth answering. She also had the irritating habit of holding her own in our exchanges.
"You're late," she said without looking up, her pen scratching across an advanced calculus problem the rest of the class wouldn't see for another eight years.
"Fashionably so," I corrected, dropping into my seat with exaggerated laziness. "A king is not bound by the timetables of peasants."
Her sigh was a familiar refrain. "You do realize the rest of us have reputations to maintain?"
"Reputations are the opiates of the mediocre," I said, resting my chin on my palm. "I have no interest in performing mediocrity convincingly."
She finally glanced up, her dark eyes sharp. "You say that, and yet here you are. Every day. If you despised it so much, you'd have found a way out by now."
A smirk tugged at my lips. Clever girl. "And waste this theater? Please. It amuses me to play along. To study the masks everyone wears." I tilted my head toward the other students, who were whispering excitedly about All Might's latest rescue. "Every bleating sheep thinks they're destined for greatness. They're not. They're set dressing."
"Perhaps," she allowed, her voice cool. "But even 'set dressing' can trip a king if he doesn't watch his step."
I chuckled. "And that, Momo, is why you are tolerable company."
The lecture began, Ms. Anzai launching into a trembling speech about "the ethical use of emitter quirks in emergency situations." A riveting subject if one were a saint, perhaps. I leaned back, tuning her out, my mind already elsewhere.
Today's mental warm-up: running numbers on the tensile strength of my strings against titanium alloys. Imagining the supply chains required to build a miniature railgun under the Commission's nose. Calculating the ripple effect of crashing the yen of a minor East-Asian nation.
A sharp jab in my ribs broke the reverie.
"Stop snoring," Momo whispered.
"I am not snoring," I said, voice low and dripping disdain. "I am audibly contemplating entropy. Respect the process."
Her lips twitched, almost betraying a smile. "One of these days, she's going to call on you, and I'm not covering for you."
"And one of these days," I countered, "you'll admit you enjoy watching me dance around her questions with the elegance of a matador."
Her silence was as good as a confession.
The day passed in the usual haze. Between classes, I amused myself by pilfering objects with invisible threads—an eraser here, a pen there—returning them before anyone noticed. Simple exercises in subtlety. Control.
When the final bell rang, liberation sang. I stood before the echo had died, already gathering my bag.
"You always look like you're escaping prison," Momo observed, methodically stacking her books.
"That's because I am," I replied, heading for the door. "Try not to drown in idealism before tomorrow."
Her answering sigh was fond, exasperated, and—if I wasn't mistaken—just a shade amused.
Home was another theater, though one where I had more influence over the script. My mother, Seraphina, was in the foyer arranging orchids that had probably cost more than most families' annual income. She turned, her smile radiant.
"Did you have a good day, darling?"
"It was a masterclass in surviving mediocrity," I said, striding past. "I'm to my studies."
My sanctuary awaited. No longer a child's playroom, it had transformed into something between a laboratory and an armory. Blueprints plastered the walls. Tables sagged under the weight of half-built prototypes. In the center stood a reinforced dummy, its surface shredded by countless invisible blades.
Here, I ruled.
Hours vanished as I worked. Threads shot across the room, disassembling and reassembling weapons at my command. I tested sharpness against steel, the screech of severed metal ringing like music. I wove nets, barriers, intricate lattices of invisible power that shimmered when caught by the light. My quirk was no longer just an extension of me—it was me. Fingers of a god, threads of a puppeteer, invisible leashes binding the world.
When sweat slicked my brow and fatigue weighted my limbs, I collapsed into the leather chair by my news terminal. The screen flickered to life, spilling hollow headlines into the room.
"All Might delivers another inspiring victory!""Hero Commission expands youth outreach program!""Endeavor recognized for community rebuilding efforts!"
Propaganda. Always propaganda. No mention of black-market dealings, of political fractures, of the Commission's iron grip on society. They fed the public sugar, rotting their teeth, rotting their will.
I turned it off with a snarl. Silence was preferable.
Exhaustion claimed me quickly. My body, still bound by childhood, demanded rest. I fell into sleep—and into a vision.
Not a dream. A promise.
I stood on a balcony, black glass spires rising around me like the teeth of some titanic predator. The city stretched below, reordered, perfected. Not heroes, but my agents filled the streets, their uniforms adorned with a new symbol: a bird of threads, wings spread wide.
The media did not blare All Might's laugh. It carried my decrees. The people did not cling to hollow freedom. They were bound in my web, content, efficient, serving a greater design.
And in that dream, I smiled. Not the razor grin of Doflamingo, nor the cold smirk of Gabriel Rykker. A different smile—unguarded, almost innocent. The smile of a child who had finally been given the toy he'd always wanted.
I woke with that same strange smile ghosting my lips, drool staining the silk pillow. For a single moment, I was not a king, not a conqueror, not a god sharpening his claws.
I was simply a boy.