Yujiro Hanama was ten.
But no one saw a child when they looked at him anymore. He carried himself like someone who'd already lived several lifetimes. And in truth, he had. The boy who once watched anime to escape now lived through pain to embody it. His strength wasn't just physical—it was forged in his mind, his bones, his very blood.
Yet it wasn't enough.
Strength without purpose was hollow. And Yujiro, as much as he denied it, still needed purpose.
He sat at the edge of the orphanage roof that night, knees tucked up to his chest, fingers wrapped in worn cloth that stuck to scabs. Below him, the city breathed. He listened to the air, the wind slicing between buildings, cars rumbling in the distance, the faint buzz of a flickering neon sign.
He felt heavy.
Not tired. Not exhausted.
Heavy.
Like his skin was armor and his bones carried weight beyond the physical.
Toma joined him, holding two cans of warm tea. He handed one over, silent.
Yujiro accepted it, nodding once.
Toma sipped quietly, glancing sideways. "You haven't been sleeping."
Yujiro didn't respond.
"You scream in your sleep sometimes."
Still silence.
Toma leaned back, sighing. "I get it, you know. You're trying to be strong. So no one can hurt you. But… what's left when no one can reach you?"
Yujiro looked up slowly. "Peace."
"No," Toma whispered. "Isolation."
Yujiro said nothing. His fingers tightened around the can.
The next day, Yujiro stood shirtless in front of the cracked mirror again.
His body bore the proof of every decision. Shoulders like stone. Arms carved with muscle lines no ten-year-old should have. Knuckles split. Scars webbing across his ribs.
He threw a punch.
Then another.
Then a dozen more.
He watched the ripple in his shoulders, the angle of his pivot, the stability in his feet. Every tiny imperfection screamed at him.
Too wide.
Too slow.
Too predictable.
He stopped. Breathed.
And began again.
That night, he snuck into the orphanage library.
He didn't take just books this time.
He took a laptop.
Locked away in the back room were old U.A. training archives: sparring videos, quirkless combat drills, professional movement breakdowns.
And beyond that—pirated anime clips.
He slowed them frame by frame.
Baki's torque-based striking. Ippo's Dempsey Roll. Retsu Kaioh's deep-rooted footwork.
"Not all of it's real," he muttered aloud. "But the body doesn't care what's real. It adapts to what it's shown."
Miss Maru caught him hours later, hunched over the laptop, eyes bloodshot.
"You haven't blinked in five minutes," she whispered. "Your eyes—Yujiro, you're bleeding from your temple—"
"I'm learning," he said.
"Learning to die early?"
He looked up at her, slowly.
"No. Learning to be more."
She knelt, voice softer. "You're already more than enough, Yujiro."
He shook his head. "Not yet. Not until I know every movement. Until I become it."
Over the next month, Yujiro built his own style.
He combined everything.
Boxing for rhythm.
Judo for throws.
Krav Maga for brutality.
Karate for form.
Wing Chun for trapping.
He drilled combinations in silence, testing them against trees, walls, even steel poles. If his hands bled, he taped them. If they broke, he reset them.
He conditioned his shins by kicking cinder blocks wrapped in cloth.
He sprinted in the snow barefoot to burn weakness from his legs.
He submerged himself in the river for breath control—thirty seconds, then a minute, then two.
"Feel every ounce of the movement," he told himself. "Burn it into your spine."
One night, Toma found him sitting cross-legged in the field behind the orphanage.
Yujiro's eyes were closed, his breathing shallow.
"You're meditating?"
Yujiro didn't open his eyes. "No. I'm visualizing. Every fight. Every step. Every consequence."
"You sound like a lunatic."
"I'm building a battlefield in my mind. So when I enter the real one, I never get lost."
Toma sat down beside him. "Do you ever just… want to be normal?"
Yujiro's eyes opened slowly.
"No. Because normal dies first."
On his eleventh birthday, Miss Maru left a small package on his bed.
Inside: fingerless gloves.
Stitched by hand. Reinforced with padding. Old, but durable.
Yujiro held them for a long time.
Then put them on.
He walked out into the courtyard, wrapped his hands, and faced the wall he'd been training against for a year.
He breathed in.
Out.
Then struck.
And for the first time, the wall cracked.
He didn't cheer.
He bowed.
To himself.
To the pain.
To the path.