NOVEL WEB Issue #1: “To Be a Hero”
I opened my eyes in what felt like an eternity. Everything was dark. The dream I had was so long it felt like I was in there for years.
Another life, of a homeless kid struggling to survive in… My Hero Academia anime? I barely watched it to begin with. The dream was so vivid, I could feel the hunger, the desperation, the sadness, the yearning for a better life, for a family.
Why is my bed so cold?
And hard…?
There was a small light that's been bothering me ever since i woke up, I brought one of my hand to my left eye and started to rub it.
It hurt.
Why does it hurt?
I lowered my hand and looked at it
It was dirty…. and small, very small… and it wasn’t my usual black t-shirt…
What the hell is going on?
I'm so hungry…
When was this dream going to come to an end?
It hurts… it hurts a lot…
Why did people ignore me? Were they able to see me? Was I invisible?
Ah… ah… I want to eat a burger so fucking bad.
I started to miss mom's cooking. I was going insane.
I saw a fruit vendor talking with a possible customer. That was my chance!
Before any of them could notice, I took 2 apples and sprinted away from the street into an alleyway, I kept running and ended up in another street into another alleyway. As I ate the first fresh meal in days since I arrived here my thoughts began to drift to where I was once again.
I hate this place.
Normally, waking up in an anime setting wouldn't bother me, I could start anew, maybe study hard and become someone with a meaningful career instead of wasting my time with video games again like I did in my previous life.
But, as soon as I woke up here it became painfully obvious that the life I previously had was a life full of comfort and privileges; a nice and comfy bed, parents that loved me, money to waste in sweets, video games, clothes and new technologies.
Here, I was just a kid. A kid that's been through hell. No parents, no relatives, no home, no friends, no food, no special powers either. I was alone and quirkless.
I was abandoned at one point. When? I didn’t know.
This kid managed to survive by eating garbage and whatever scraps he could find.
Everytime I went to sleep I had dreams of his memories, of this body that wasn’t mine.
Poor kid, died of starvation… in a city with heroes.
I threw away the scraps of the apple and started eating the other one in my hand, tears started to run down my cheeks.
This isn't fair.
-o-
The street vendor catched me in the act, I managed to escape, but that was the last time I saw him on that street.
I…
I was forced to search in the dumpsters for something to eat, and felt so humiliated by it.
For the first time in my life I felt hunger.
For the first time in my life I stole.
For the first time in my life I shivered at night.
For the first time in my life…
I wish I was with my mommy.
Shit, the kid's thoughts began to mix with my own. It's been what felt like a month “living” here. I felt so bad for taking over this kid's life. He yearned for so much and wasn't able to get it.
Died of starvation. What a sick joke.
And people saw me… they just chose to ignore me instead. Why bother when a hero will pick up the slack later?
Ah… ah… I- Im losing consciousness
No!
I won't pass out here and die! I will keep on living.
For the kid's sake, if nothing else.
I stood up on my own little legs and I started to walk towards the edge of the city. I remembered doing early explorations to get used to this place and discovering a forest close to the edge of the city.
Forests meant; plants, rivers, wild animals and native fruits. If people were going to ignore a starving homeless kid in the streets then it would be better to not see them either. They pitied me, but they wouldn't lift a finger for me. I couldn’t stand it.
As I walked through an alleyway a fight in the middle of the street between a hero and a villain caught my attention. I pondered if I should go and see it. It wasn’t my first time watching one, but somehow it felt so different than before. They were using their quirks, a water based quirk against… a quirk that makes the user inflate like a balloon.
That was just sad.
I ignored it and went back to walking.
I hated this place.
“Urk… ghu... ” a month has gone by and I haven't gotten used to the taste of raw fish. I didn’t like it in my world, and I didn’t like it here. This place was a bit colder than my corner on the old alleyway, but at least I had food and I haven't forgotten what I learned through youtube videos and tips from my dad. It took me a while but I managed to do my first fire on the second night, I shivered non stop and only managed to sleep in the morning.
I swallowed hard and the piece of raw fish went down my throat, normally I would make a small fire and cook it, but you never know when a predator is looking. Last time a wolf-like dog stole my fish while starting a fire and I was so scared I couldn't even move. It was so humiliating, I felt so powerless and impotent.
What was I supposed to do?
I'm just a kid.
…
I hated feeling powerless.
I wish I had a quirk, then…
Then…
I...
I would be like everybody else.
“Mng… ” my eyes began to sting a little bit, but I didn't shed tears. I didn’t want to be like everybody else, I wanted to stop feeling powerless.
A glimpse of a memory goes through my head, a memory that isn't mine.
Heroes are so cool… i wish i had a quirk so i could be one
Hero? Poor kid.
You were a background character in a story, you were created so you could become another's character motivation-
My line of thought stopped abruptly. What the fuck was I thinking?
This was a kid, a little kid.
What was the difference between a homeless kid from this world than the one from my world?
I felt sick in the stomach, and it wasn’t the raw fish I ate.
I stood up and looked at my dirty hands.
You wanted to be a hero? You wanted to help the needy? You wanted to have a life filled with happy memories? You wanted a big family?
‘I'm going to give it to you. I don't know how, but I won't stop until i get you all those things for you, and everyone like you.’ I thought, standing up.
Gurē
‘I will work hard, I'm going to train every day from now on and show you that you don't need a quirk to become a hero.’ I looked at my right hand as it became a fist, fish forgotten on the floor.
Quirks didn’t define who we are.
Watch over me.
I'm going to make your dreams a reality.
…
But first I needed to wash my hands.
I won't quit, I won't quit.
Months went by and I was still living in the woods close to the river. I managed to steal a few things while visiting the city, such as clothes, towels, strings, a knife and a pan. I began cooking my meals more often, raw fish had a strong taste, one I never got used to, so I decided to make the fire first.
I had noticed that quirks users make no sense at all. Everytime I’d visit the city and saw some of them, they would jump two times the average size of a person and punch three times as hard and had a quirk that created bubbles or something.
No special gear, no special training, no special drugs. Just regular training. Did quirks influence how their bodies adapt to doing all these feats?
I finished another push up, getting me to forty-three.
The answer was no.
The world had bullshit physics.
This world worked completely differently than the world I'm used to. The world I came from, people could only run up to a certain speed and lift up to a certain amount, going beyond that could be considered an impossible feat by a small portion of people that train all their lives for that specific result.
But this world was different.
There was no limit to the human body. It reminded me of a lot of shows I used to watch in my teenage years, One Piece being one of them, where the limits of the human were broken and they could tap into power-ups if they put their mind and body into it.
What a load of bullshit.
But somehow-
'Forty-five.' I counted.
It worked.
A kid, a small one at that, wouldn't be able to put up through the same amount of training that I had been putting myself through, the strain would be too much for their developing bodies. There was also the fact that my nutrient intake is completely different from what a kid should need to survive, but somehow I was in good condition. So what gives?
Another one of this world's many mysteries.
I finished another set and calmly sat on the ground looking at my hands, small calluses forming on my palms from the non-stop training I had been undergoing. My arms looked exactly the same when I first woke up, but they felt less flabby, hard, there was some muscle but you couldn’t see it with the naked eye.
Was this anime logic? Was this one of the effects of the world?
On that same note, was there a limit to the human body of this world? Is it like One Punch Man in which you could break it if you push yourself hard enough? Or is it like One Piece in which people could tap into a hidden bullshit power? What were the limits? What was the true potential of the human body?
Getting up from the ground, I got close to the tree I had been punching since I started training. At first it was a really painful experience, the very first lesson I learned was using old rags to cover my fists. But after months of training the pain of punching it directly went down and my skin get less irritated the more I did it.
Everytime my mind wandered to the limits of the human body of this world, it made me so angry. Was I special? Was the strength of a human based on will? If a human in this world could become strong by just training their body, why aren't there quirkless heroes? Is this a race thing?
I didn’t get it.
The next punch rattled the tree and leaves started to fall rather slowly, my fist cried in pain. That was the first time that the tree responded to one of my punches.
Was it because I was angry?
The leaves that fell began to move in different directions. This reminded me of the first episode of Hajime no Ippo and his rigorous training to become a boxer… catching a certain amount of leaves before they could touch the ground.
My right hand moved and catched a leaf.
Too much time alone was making me go crazy, was I really attempting to replicate a training from an anime?
My left hand raced again and tried to catch another leaf but I missed in the last second.
I guess I am.
“uGH!! Agh fuck!” I screamed while holding my index finger.
It's been a year since I decided to train to become a hero, or I thought it has been a year. I was starting to grow up and soon the clothes I stole won't do me any good.
Since that day I've started to train my body using… anime training… As I worked through what I could remember I've been pondering if all those training regimes could help me in any way possible.
Surprisingly?
They do help.
It was so stupid, I hated it.
Which brought me to the present, what might be the stupidest training idea to date. While doing pushups, situps, crunches, squats, free running, punching trees and catching leaves were your average standard training routine, I began exploring new alternatives to regular “human” training.
Such as… oh man this is so embarrassing.
Weighted training, holding rocks while running or strapping rocks against my body using the spare string I borrowed, tree jumping, catching fish with my bare hands, rock climbing with my bare hands and…
Sigh…
After I learned that all these training methods started to show results, I wondered if it was possible to go for a more advanced method, such as one of the most hellish training I knew, which was the ‘Six Skills’. It was never disclosed the training to actually develop those techniques in the anime or manga of One Piece, but from what I remember they were techniques that required a near perfect control of the body, from the nails from the feet to the strands of hair from the head.
I started to shake my hand trying to alleviate the pain. I was way over my head thinking I could do it after a year of training, especially after doing twenty thumb-push ups on the same day.
“The lesson is not to get c-cocky… ow” I said, still holding my finger, I looked at it and sighed in relief. “It's not broken, thankfully, but I guess I won't try puncture a tree any time soon”
Trying to puncture a tree with my index finger with just one year of training? What was I thinking?
I should have had almost perfect control of my body to even attempt something like that, even then, I should have tried going for something more simple like Shave or Moonwalk. Those techniques only required better control of my legs instead, they would have been so much easier to develop, but I was too eager at the idea of an offensive skill, even if I should be considered an adult I still have the developing brain of a child.
Being able to jump in the air would be cool too.
I decided to get back to the camp, gotta use a rag to hold my finger in place.
Maybe I should try doing handstands with my fingers first?
'Argh, stop thinking about Finger Pistol for now' I thought, grunting in pain again.
A/N: (Oct 12, 2022 edit: Hi everybody! Just doing some cleaning here, going to leave small messages on every Issue I edit. I’ll be cleaning them all up to Issue 6 or 7 mostly so they stay in past tense and fix some grammar errors I found on my reread))
He fell for it lads!
I didn't want to go back to writing after a coworker told me he saw my pseudonym in Fanfiction, back in 2013. It took me 9 years to recover, but here I am once more with another account.
I've been getting into BNHA and One Piece lately, I'm more interested in the ladies but certain concepts catch my attention, such as power structures, powers, techniques and such. Before writing I had the scene in my head of a starving kid dying in bnha and nobody noticing.
One of the things I noticed about Heroes in bnha is that a lot of them become heroes for notoriety, fame, money and prestige, and it made me think, those are just cops with extra steps innit? So I decided to make a story about someone that sees the worst of this world and decides to do something about it, maybe not now, but really soon.
That's it, I hope it catches your attention, still debating the harem aspect, I will probably go with open relationships, considering this OC spends a lot of time reflecting on life choices. There's going to be a bit of a smut in the future so I hope this serves as a warning.
Thank you for reading!