….
Jin-Ho lay sprawled across a thick tree branch, one arm draped over his eyes to block the afternoon sun, the other hanging loosely at his side.
But he wasn't sleeping.
His mind was occupied with timelines and the strange melancholy that came with knowing you were about to leave a world behind.
Eight years.
He thought, watching patterns of light drift through the leaves overhead. That much time had passed.
Since his arrival in a world of heroes and quirks, he had been moving forward ever since, beginning with a desperate attempt to save a burning child on Sekoto Peak, followed by the slow work of building something that resembled a life: relationships, routines, responsibilities.
It had been different from his time in the MCU.
In that dimension, he had grown to enjoy - Tony Stark's sharp wit, the Yinsen company, but the world itself had always felt temporary, like a stage he was passing through.
Here, though? This world had gotten under his skin in ways he hadn't anticipated.
Maybe it was because he had spent so much time actively trying to change things, to prevent tragedies before they happened. Or maybe eight years was simply long enough to feel like home.
"But I have a home to return to." Jin-Ho murmured. "A real one. With a real family waiting."
He had promised himself, sitting on that bench with Toya in the middle of the night years ago, that he would stop running from them.
That he would try.
Soon, he would be leaving. Maybe permanently, if not for this system panel.
◤-----------------------◥
[[Portal 002] (Updated)
- World Assigned: MHA
- Synchronization Rate: 69%]
….
[Note: When world synchronization reaches 100%, the host may freely travel to this world - the rate depends on your influence on the world.]
◣-----------------------◢
The thought sat heavy in his chest.
Below him, the playground continued its afternoon routine, completely unaware of the dimensional traveler watching from above.
Children's laughter mixed with occasional shouts, the sound of quirks being tested in ways that would have seemed miraculous in his original world but were completely mundane here.
Jin-Ho's attention focused on one particular group of children.
Four boys, maybe five or six years old, gathered near the edge of the playground. Three stood in a loose semicircle around a fourth, a small kid with messy green hair and a face streaked with dirt and tears.
Jin-Ho had been keeping track of that green-haired boy for a while now.
Not stalking, exactly.
He wasn't lurking outside the kid's house or following him home from school. But every few months, Jin-Ho would check in, making casual observations, gathering updates through the network of information he had built over the years.
The boy's name was Midoriya Izuku - the protagonist of this world.
He is the same five years old and quirkless kid from the start of the show.
Right. Just like any basic setup, the Hero is powerless in a world where eighty percent of the population had some kind of superhuman ability, which is nothing short of a social death sentence.
Especially for a kid like Midoriya, who apparently couldn't stop talking about becoming a hero despite having no power to back up that dream.
The boy had received his diagnosis just over a year ago, at age four, the standard age when quirks typically manifested.
Jin-Ho could only imagine what that conversation with the doctor had been like, the slow realization that the power everyone expected would never come.
A full year of knowing he was powerless in a world that worshipped power.
And apparently, he still hadn't learned to keep his head down.
"Kacchan!" Midoriya's voice carried up to Jin-Ho's perch, high and desperate.
The green-haired boy stepped forward, placing himself between a smaller boy with tears streaming down his face and the three bullies.
Jin-Ho's eyes narrowed as he assessed the situation.
The lead bully was easy to spot: spiky ash-blond hair, red eyes blazing with arrogance that seemed far too developed for a six-year-old, hands already crackling with small explosions.
That would be Bakugou Katsuki, the 'Kacchan' Midoriya had addressed.
Explosion quirk, by the looks of it. Powerful, flashy, and currently being used to intimidate.
Behind Bakugou stood two lackeys.
One had small, bat-like wings extending from his back.
The other had grotesquely elongated fingers, stretched to twice their normal length, flexing them like weapons.
Three against one. And the one was quirkless.
Midoriya clutched his All Might t-shirt like it was armor. "Can't you see he is crying?"
Bakugou's expression twisted into something cruel. "If you keep going—"
Midoriya's voice cracked, but he forced himself to continue, taking a fighting stance. "I-I-I will never forgive you!"
It was the bravest, most foolish thing Jin-Ho had seen in weeks.
An arrogant smirk spread across Bakugou's face.
He raised both hands and slammed his fists together, small explosions blooming on contact. The crack of the detonation echoed across the playground, and several other children stopped playing to watch.
"Even though you are quirkless..." Bakugou's voice dripped with contempt. "You are pretending to be a hero... Deku?"
Then they attacked.
It wasn't even really a fight. Fights implied some degree of reciprocal combat. This was just assault.
Bakugou lunged forward first, shoving Midoriya hard in the chest. The smaller boy stumbled backward, his improvised fighting stance collapsing immediately.
Wing-kid swooped in from the side, using his limited flight to gain momentum for a shoulder check that sent Midoriya sprawling. Finger-kid followed up by tripping him as he tried to stand, then pushing him face-first into the dirt.
The entire encounter lasted maybe two minutes. Bakugou landed a few more shoves and weak explosions, not strong enough to cause serious burns, but painful enough to hurt.
The lackeys took turns pushing and tripping whenever Midoriya tried to get up.
Through it all, the green-haired kid kept trying to stand. Kept trying to position himself between the bullies and the crying child he had been defending.
Even when he was clearly outmatched, even when his face was covered in dirt and scrapes, he kept getting up.
Until he didn't.
Eventually, Midoriya stayed down, lying on the ground with fresh bruises forming on his arms and a split lip bleeding onto the playground dirt.
Beside him, the kid he had been protecting was still crying, now from witnessing the beating more than whatever had started the conflict.
Bakugou and his friends laughed, made a few more cruel comments that Jin-Ho couldn't quite hear from his perch, then walked away with the swagger of children who knew they wouldn't face consequences.
The playground slowly returned to normal.
Other kids went back to their games, either indifferent to what they had witnessed or too young to understand they should have helped.
And Jin-Ho remained on the tree branch, watching.
He hadn't moved during the entire encounter.
Part of him, the part that had spent years trying to fix broken systems and save people from their worst fates, wanted to jump down there right now.
But he didn't.
Because Jin-Ho knew how this story was supposed to go.
Midoriya Izuku would spend years being told he couldn't be a Hero.
Would accumulate bruises and insults and crushing disappointment. Would be pushed down again and again, literally and metaphorically, by people who saw his dream as a joke.
And then, one day, he would meet All Might. Would prove his worth through that same foolish courage he had just displayed.
Would inherit One For All and begin the journey to becoming the greatest hero of his generation.
Jin-Ho stayed in the tree, watching as Midoriya slowly pushed himself to his feet. He wiped blood from his lip with the back of his hand, leaving a smear of red across his cheek.
Then, despite everything, Midoriya turned to the crying child beside him and said something Jin-Ho couldn't hear.
Whatever it was, it made the other kid stop crying, made him nod and smile, just a little.
Even beaten and bloody, Midoriya was still trying to help.
As the bullied kid finally ran off down the street, Jin-Ho dropped from the tree branch.
The sound of his landing made Midoriya flinch.
"Ah—!"
Jin-Ho stretched his arms lazily. "Man... My legs are stiff."
Midoriya blinked, squinting at him. After a moment, recognition flashed across his face. "Wait... you are the brother from the café!"
"Yeah." Jin-Ho waved. "Didn't think you would remember."
This wasn't their first meeting.
Midoriya often visited Jin-Ho's small café in Shizuoka with his mother, Inko. And obviously, and occasionally, and coincidentally Jin-Ho had run into them just being the friendly café owner who sometimes gave the green-haired kid an extra cookie.
He had even seen Bakugou Katsuki at the café a few times, dragged along by his own parents.
"So you got beaten up pretty badly." Jin-Ho said matter-of-factly, walking closer. He crouched down to Midoriya's height and began dusting off the remaining dirt from his clothes.
While his hands worked on the visible dirt, Jin-Ho's other hand moved, pressing a small healing talisman against the inside of Midoriya's t-shirt.
The paper was thin enough to go unnoticed, warm enough to blend with body heat.
The effects wouldn't be immediate, Jin-Ho had set it to activate during sleep.
Ten times faster recovery.
Midoriya paused for a moment, his expression briefly confused as warmth spread from his back.
But kids his age didn't question things like that. Sometimes you felt weird after getting beat up, and then you felt better.
"I-I am alright." Midoriya said, his voice trying to be brave but coming out small.
"Sure you are." Jin-Ho said quietly. Then, standing upright, he added. "Come on. I will walk you home."
Midoriya hesitated.
Normally, being approached by a grown man offering to walk you home would be suspicious. But he had been to Jin-Ho's café often enough to trust him. There was something about him that felt safe.
"You don't have to, big brother." Midoriya said, using the informal title that some kids used for friendly older teenagers.
"Yeah, I don't have to." Jin-Ho agreed easily, already starting to walk in the direction of Midoriya's apartment.
"But I can, right? So why not?"
….
.
[To be continued…]
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