Age: 11
I have thirteen notebooks lined up on my shelf. The first five are hard to read, filled with childish drawings and lists of "things that make me special" that always ended in "nothing." They are the mute testimony of a child looking for an excuse to exist in a world of superpowers.
Notebook six marks the change. That is where the drawings of fantasy costumes disappear, replaced by muscular diagrams, diet charts, and the biomechanics notes that Katsuki forced me to memorize.
But the transformation in those pages wasn't just mine. My whole world changed. Sometimes I look at my mom and find it hard to remember the fragile woman who tearfully apologized to me in front of the computer monitor. Now, Inko Midoriya is a fortress. Whenever she has a free morning or afternoon, she puts on her sneakers and goes jogging with me. She gets tired quickly, but she always cheers me on from a park bench while I finish my laps. She learned to cook high-protein meals, makes sure I stretch every night, and pushes me to keep going.
And then there are the Bakugos. Over these years, I learned to deeply appreciate that family. Aunt Mitsuki yells all the time, but she always makes sure my plate is full when I stay for dinner, treating me almost like a second son. Uncle Masaru, despite coming home tired from work, always makes time to listen to me mutter for hours about Quirk analysis without showing a hint of boredom.
And Katsuki... he isn't a fairy-tale hero. He is grumpy, impatient, and has the tact of sandpaper. But he was the one who forcefully turned off my monitor that day and told me to stop crying over what I didn't have and start sweating for what I could build. He keeps his tough-guy facade at school, but behind closed doors, he is the stubborn friend dragging me toward the future with him.
I finished wrapping my knuckles and grabbed the bamboo broom. The smell of sweat and disinfectant in the Nagare dojo filled my lungs. We were alone. Katsuki had left twenty minutes ago to go to the hardware store, and I had stayed behind to clean the tatami as a thank you to our instructor for letting us use the facilities.
Ogawa was sitting on the edge of the wooden platform, meticulously cleaning his glasses. He was a man sculpted by the streets of Musutafu, with wrinkles that looked like maps of old police patrols.
"Bakugo is terrifying," Ogawa said suddenly, breaking the silence of the dojo. "His tactical mind is three steps ahead of his own destructive force. He is a damn tank with the brain of a supercomputer."
I stopped, resting my chin on the broom. Immense pride swelled in my chest.
"I know. He's incredible."
"Yes, he is," Ogawa put his glasses back on, fixing his dark eyes on me. "And that's why, if you keep fighting the way he teaches you, you're going to end up very badly on your first patrol."
The weight of his words chilled my blood. I set the broom aside and stepped closer, feeling a knot in my stomach.
"What do you mean, Sensei? Kacchan teaches me to analyze angles, to use the opponent's force, to..."
"He teaches you martial arts," Ogawa interrupted, stepping heavily off the platform. "Bakugo teaches you to fight assuming the human body has limits. But he doesn't realize something fundamental, Midoriya: his baseline for normality is distorted. He has bones that can withstand explosions. If he takes a punch to the ribs, he gets back up. If you take that same punch from a mutant with enhanced strength, your lungs get punctured."
Ogawa took a quick step toward me. It was so sudden that I barely had time to raise my guard into the perfect stance Katsuki had drilled into my brain. But the old ex-cop didn't throw a punch. He simply grabbed my raised wrist with one hand and, with the other, pressed two fingers with clinical force right into the hollow of my throat, stopping a millimeter short of my windpipe.
I froze, coughing from the pure reflex of being startled. My perfect stance was useless.
"There are no tatami mats on the street. There are no rules of sportsmanship or clean blocks," Ogawa whispered, slowly letting go of me. "If a villain twice your weight grabs you in an alley, a judo throw won't save you. You don't have the brute strength to execute it. Bakugo fights to win a match. You, kid, have to fight to survive. A clean fight is a luxury for the invulnerable."
I rubbed my neck, looking down at my hands. Hands covered in calluses from the weights, but glass hands in a world of steel. He was right. Katsuki was teaching me to be a martial artist, subconsciously assuming my body could keep up with him in the long run.
"Then what do I do?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
"You fight dirty," Ogawa declared with clinical coldness. "I will teach you how to break an index finger with less than three kilos of pressure. How to shatter knees by stomping sideways. How to use keys, dust, and the dark. I will teach you to fight dirty so you can escape alive from monsters three times your size. But there is a condition."
He looked me in the eyes with an intensity that brooked no argument.
"You won't tell Bakugo."
I looked at him, bewildered.
"Why? He wouldn't care. He wants me to be strong."
"Because he analyzes everything," Ogawa cut in. "If he knows you know how to break fingers or attack the throat, his brain will automatically develop an instinctive countermeasure the next time you spar. You will lose your only real advantage against people superior to you: the element of surprise. The unpredictability of someone cornered is the most dangerous weapon in the world. Keep it to yourself."
I felt the weight of responsibility crushing my shoulders, followed by absolute clarity. It made sense. Kacchan always calculated every variable. If I wanted to walk beside him and cover his back someday, I needed an ace up my sleeve that not even he could foresee. I needed to stop showing him all my cards.
"Understood, Sensei," I replied firmly.
"Good. Start thinking about how much force is needed to dislocate a blind shoulder. We start tomorrow."
I went back to the broom with sharpened focus. I admire Kacchan; he is the person who sets the pace I must follow. But while he looks ahead, perfecting his explosions and trusting his indestructible body, I will be down here, learning the rules of the street. Because the day his calculations fail and a villain corners him, I will be the dirty trick that gets us out of there.
I will keep this lesson to myself. It's the only way to make sure we both cross the finish line.
Author's note: This chapter was crap, if you have any constructive criticism, I'm all ears.