Matt Wills had died at twenty-one, a life of missed opportunities cut short by a freak accident on a rain-slicked London street. One moment he was bracing for impact; the next, he was being squeezed through a narrow, suffocating tunnel of flesh.
The sensation was horrific. When he finally burst into the light, cold air hitting his wet skin, his lungs burned with an instinctual need to scream. He let out a piercing, high-pitched wail that echoed in the delivery room, but inwardly, he was a man in his prime screaming in absolute confusion.
What is this?! Where am I?! he cursed, the thoughts incoherent and frantic. Who are these people? Why am I so small?!
A few days later, the existential dread had settled into a grim, humiliated reality. He spent his time in a plastic hospital crib, watching nurses come and go. They gushed over him, cooing about his "precious little nose" and "tiny toes," while Matt stared back with an intensity that genuinely unsettled some of the staff. The greatest indignity, however, was the hunger. When his body demanded it, he found himself drinking breast milk, his adult mind screaming in a mix of embarrassment and survival instinct. Just keep drinking, he told himself, closing his eyes in a mental cringe. It's fuel. It's just fuel. Oh god, someone kill me again.
His perspective changed the moment they brought him home. He was lying in his nursery, brooding over his lost life, when a woman walked in. She was beautiful, with a kind face and hair that seemed to flutter as if caught in a permanent, gentle breeze.
"Oh, my little Takeru," she whispered, her voice like honey. "Are you awake already?"
She didn't reach into the crib. She simply waved her hand in a graceful, sweeping motion. Matt felt the air beneath him thicken, turning into a soft, invisible cushion. He was lifted out of the crib, floating gently through the air toward her waiting arms.
His tiny heart hammered. Telekinesis? No... wind. As she cradled him, she walked into the living room where a large television was blaring. A booming, deep-chested laugh echoed through the house—a sound that was instantly recognizable.
On the screen, a titan of a man with golden hair and a smile that defied the very concept of fear was pulling a bus full of people out of a ravine.
"Everything is fine now! Why? Because I am here!"
Matt's eyes went wide. The woman—his mother, Aki—pressed a kiss to his forehead. "Look, Takeru! All Might saved everyone again. One day, you'll be just as strong and brave."
My Hero Academia, Matt thought, his infant brain finally piecing it together. I'm in a world of monsters and gods. I'm not just a baby; I'm a future Hero.
The next four years were a grueling exercise in patience. Matt—now Takeru—refused to waste a single second. While other babies were content to stare at mobiles, Takeru was fighting a war against his own underdeveloped motor skills.
Learning to crawl was a month-long mission of sheer willpower, dragging his heavy head across the carpet until his tiny shoulders burned. When he finally mastered walking at nine months, he didn't just toddle; he marched with the purpose of a man with a deadline.
He shocked his parents by "teaching himself" to read before he was two. He would sit for hours with Aki's hero journals and Minotu's technical manuals, his eyes scanning kanji that no toddler should have understood. He was quickly labeled a "genius" by his family and the local pediatricians. In a world where people were born with engines in their legs or the ability to breathe fire, a toddler with an advanced intellect wasn't seen as suspicious—it was just another quirk of the new genetic lottery. No one questioned why he seemed to understand complex social cues or why he never threw tantrums; they just assumed his brain was as "super" as any other hero's power.
Through it all, All Might remained his north star. In his past life, Matt had watched the show as fiction—a dream of what heroism could be. In this life, seeing the Symbol of Peace on the news every night was a visceral, grounding reality. He watched every interview, every rescue, and every documentary. All Might wasn't just his favorite hero from two lifetimes; he was the benchmark.
He spent his "playtime" in a corner of the living room, sitting in a cross-legged meditative pose. He was waiting. He knew his parents' quirks—Zephyr's Wind and Full-Stop's Shock-Sink—and he knew the "Quirk Factor" was humming somewhere inside him, waiting for the fuse to light.
The wait ended on a Tuesday morning, shortly after his fifth birthday.
"Takeru-kun, focus on your breakfast!" Aki chirped. She was using a localized updraft to keep the juice pitcher hovering as she poured.
Across the table, Minotu lowered his newspaper. "Leave him be, Aki. He's got that look again. Like he's trying to solve calculus in his head." Minotu reached over, ruffling Takeru's hair. "You're a Kazama, son. My Shock-Sink and your mother's Wind... whatever you get, it's going to be a heavy hitter."
Takeru didn't answer. He felt it. A spark in his marrow. A hum in his blood. He reached for it, pulling at the electricity in the toaster, the heat from the stove, and the kinetic energy of his father's footsteps.
CRACK-BOOM!
The kitchen lights turned a violent, piercing cyan before exploding. But the glass didn't fall. It stayed suspended in the air, caught in a field of raw, pulsing blue energy—the 'Aether'—that radiated from Takeru's skin.
"Whoa!" Minotu jumped up, his skin darkening as he activated his Shock-Sink to protect Aki. "Takeru! Stay calm! Pull it back in!"
"I'm trying, Dad!" Takeru yelled, his voice cracking with excitement. His small frame was trembling as he grappled with the power flooding his nervous system. Blue sparks danced across the ceiling, and the air smelled like ozone.
For two long, intense minutes, Takeru stood in the center of the kitchen, his brow furrowed in concentration. Slowly, the chaotic arcs of lightning began to soften. The floating shards of glass lowered gently to the floor as the field retracted.
Finally, the cyan light faded from his skin, leaving him panting but grinning ear to ear.
Later that afternoon, at Musutafu General Hospital, Dr. Yamata looked at the sensor readouts with all four of his eyes wide.
"Your son is a conversion engine," the doctor whispered. "He's got the storage capacity of his father and the manipulation precision of his mother. Essentially, he is a living battery that can charge from almost any external force."
The doctor looked at the registration form, his tone becoming serious. "But listen closely, Kazama-kun. You are a 'converter.' Right now, your internal capacity is like a small flask. If you want to reach the heights of the great heroes, you will need to train diligently to expand that 'flask' and learn how to accumulate energy without burning yourself out."
Minotu grinned, a massive, proud hand landing on Takeru's shoulder. "What are we calling it, son?"
Takeru looked at the glowing blue sparks dancing between his fingers. He had been waiting five years to say this.
"Aether Pulse."
As they walked out of the hospital, Takeru looked up at a giant billboard of All Might. In London, Matt Wills had been a spectator. Here, as Kazama Takeru, he was going to be the man who stood at the top.
The soul of the twenty-one-year-old was finally home.