[In the Distant Future]

“My Liege, they’ve arrived.”

With shadows covering his face, he kneeled down in front of his master, facing the jagged ground and awaiting an answer.

For a moment, silence rang throughout the rock-ridden room; the only sound audible was the dripping of rain hitting its fellow droplets that had collected on the floor.

“And us?”

Without so much as a pause, he replied, “We’re all ready.”

Thinking for a moment, he replied, “Send these orders; make sure they go down to the lowest ranks. [Prepare].”

“As you wish.”

Receiving his command, the kneeling man disappeared, leaving the liege to bask in the silence.

With the area cleared, he dropped his "act" and openly complained, “Haiz, I’d hoped it didn’t come to this.”

“Most rulers don’t.”

Stepping out of the shadow, a man donning a monocle approached, stopping only a few inches behind.

Similarly, he took the chance to gaze out of the hole intended to be a ‘window,’ looking at the apocalyptic sight.

“I’m nothing of a ruler, just a normal man.”

“Surely you jest, Liege-”

Stare

“Ahem–My lord, if you're normal, then we're all just specks of dust.”

Knowing he wouldn’t get anywhere in the conversation, the man in charge dropped the topic.

“I didn’t want this.” 

But as if expecting that, the subservient one replied, “But you’ve seamlessly taken up the task and have done quite the job, I must say.”

With a slight smile, he said, “I’ll never win, will I?”

“I’m afraid not, my Lord.”

A peaceful silence graced the two as they stared at the empty and cracked streets, with rubble littering what used to be a road.

Buildings sunken into cracks fell into unknown depths, blood soaked into the pavement despite bodies of flesh being nowhere to be seen.

"Besides-"

Deciding to break the silence, he spoke, “It’s in your title.”

“My title? Oh, I did hear about a name they’ve been calling me." His gaze turned slightly melancholic as he uttered the phrase,

"The One-Eyed King.”

_________________________________________________________________________________

“Fuck.”

Trying to look through his blood-covered eyes, the man cursed as his sight was filled with nothing but red.

The smell of iron clogged up his nose, paired with the pain from the bullet in his chest, and his senses were overwhelmed.

“Damn trash, you made me waste a shell.”

“Calm down; our task is over, and you know the boss doesn't like being held up.”

Tsking at that, he looked at his “work” before spitting on the soon-to-be carcass and turning away, hopping into their white van and off to report their success.

Lying in a heaping pile of trash, the man's mind grew slower by the second, incoherent thoughts and half-filled sentences dancing around the barely cognitive portions of his mind.

Alas, without medical attention, nothing could be done to save this ‘damned’ soul from his fate, and so less than 7 minutes later, all that lay was another corpse, driving down the number of humans alive by 1

.

.

'Look, God, I know we are not on particularly good terms or anything, nor am I not religious or anything, but please. If I did something to anger you, I’ll repent; this punishment is too cruel.’

These were the thoughts of a particular baby on a kitchen table as he was almost driven into madness; the incessant moaning from the room next over had him wishing he remained unborn.

“WAAAAAHHHHH.”

All the anger made his young body respond in the only way it could, wiggling its stiff body parts and wailing for its parents' attention.

Huff

Labored breathing came from the next room as a woman’s voice was heard.

“Your baby-”

“Shhh, the only baby you need to be focused on is the one about to grow inside of you.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

The worst part wasn’t being stuck in his mind; it was that, due to his boredom, he unconsciously imagined the scenes occurring next to him.

The image of that man lying on top of some worn-out woman as she talked to him in a sultry voice?

He only wailed even louder, and from the mandatory doctor's visits, they worried about how much strain his underdeveloped vocal cords were put under.

“WAAAAHHHHH.”

“Don’t… Huff... you need to feed him?”

“Don’t worry about him; I’ve let him scream for an entire night, and he was fine in the morning.”

‘I wasn’t, you bastard; my throat is still sore from that night, and that was over 3 months ago!’

“Just ignore him... no, rather-”

He imagined a rather fat man crawling into her ear as he shittily whispered

“Think of it as how you’ll end up when you can’t walk in the morning.”

“~I don’t believe you; I’ll need to be taught personally.”

“Well then.”

So the moaning and groaning of the other two continued throughout the night, ignoring the complaining of not just the baby but the surrounding neighbors as well.

---12 Years Later

Sitting on a lone swing reminiscent of a certain whiskered boy was one with white hair, gazing at his fellow age-mates as they played to their hearts' content during their free time.

This would be conspicuous and questionable if it weren’t for the fact that he was (mentally) more than double their age.

Sigh

‘Fuck me; first, I die because my client gets screwed over by their business partner. Tch, didn’t they ever hear the statement [don’t kill the middleman?]'

He could picture that coward, who was practically begging for his services prior, now laughing at his death.

'All I did was set them up, give away crucial intel that would give their opponent the upper hand, and take a cut of the pay; really, they overreacted.’

Kicking the sand beneath his feet, he continued.

‘But to end my life when I didn’t even turn 15 yet. Seriously, they couldn’t have waited a few more months. Then I just had to get reincarnated into this world.’

Looking around, the oddities that highlighted the differences between his past and present were evident.

People with pencils for fingers, some whose noses could grow or shrink, or maybe they’d been granted the appearance and abilities of certain animals.

‘If I didn’t happen to live in the alleyway near some nerdy middle schooler, I wouldn’t have even known that this was the world of My Hero Academia.’

He imagined how that boy's face must've looked when all of his precious manga, which he thought was 'Stolen', had been returned, sitting utop his bed, though not in the best of conditions.

‘I don’t know much about this world; one rainy day destroyed my only chance at learning about it originally, but from what I did read, it’s a world where the supernatural became the norm, and almost everyone possesses some sort of unique ability.’

Really, “All Men were Created Equal." Such a statement was thrown out and dragged through the mud in the face of this world.

‘But that wasn’t even the lowest of my luck, unlike those that got reincarnated into wealthy families.’

He “borrowed” a lot of ‘books’ from that boy's room.

‘I was reincarnated into a horrible one.’

One of the many bruises on his body acted up as phantom pain grazed his mind.

'A drunkard who uses me to bring women home—the classic mother who died during childbirth—by the age of 3,  when I could startwalking he kicked me out of the house, telling me to only come back when it's dark. I bet if heroes didn’t patrol frequently at night, he’d have kicked me out forever.’

“RECESS IS OVER!”

Stopping another sigh he followed the horde of children back into their mundane classroom.

‘If it wasn’t for school, I’m afraid I’d have been forced into a life of crime once again.’

Sitting amongst his peers, he ignored the restless children, who still had plenty of energy despite just coming in from outside.

So the rest of his day went by, monotonously learning information even the past him, who barely attended school and eventually dropped out knew.

Once the sky turned dusk, he left school, and walked home by himself, something he was surprised others batted no eye about.

He spent his time picking up coins until the moon came up, the chilly season of fall transferring to winter, forcing him to come inside the house.

Creak

Opening the door, he saw his drunkard of a dad sitting on the couch, dozing off into a dream, before the noise of him closing the door caused his eyes to gain clarity and focus on him.

‘Fuck.’

Alarm bells rang in his head, as this wasn’t the first time this had happened; each time it did, he was left with pain and scars.

This time didn’t seem any different as he saw the red hue on his father's pasty face, which, along with the empty bottles around, told Ken about his future.

And right on the money, he saw his old man grab a broken beer bottle before throwing it in the direction of his head.

Though his aim was off, it would have made partial contact if he hadn’t sidestepped, letting the bottle collide with the wall behind.

Experience from his many fights in the past helped him avoid many injuries, like this one, though that spoke volumes about his situation since he still showed up at school with so many.

His internal smugness didn’t last, however, as the rebound from the bottle shattering caused the many shards that scattered around to insert themselves inside various parts of his leg.

Ken’s mouth shifted into a frown, not only due to his injury but also due to the sensations akin to his child's body screaming at him.

‘My body still isn’t used to such levels of pain.’  He thought in disdain.

He looked back up in time to see a small smile fall onto his father's face at his look of anguish—a rare sight for him, unfortunately.

The plumper man's eyes did a quick sweep around the house, clean, save for the bottles of beer, lacking the usual pants, lipstick, and overall telltale signs of a woman having been here.

Taking in the unusual sight, the old man's facial expression shifted as quickly as his mood.

Just as quickly as the smile came, it left and morphed into an expression of fury as he roughly grabbed his son by the neck, not caring for any possible injuries.

“DAMN YOU, YOU'RE FUCKING WORTHLESS. YOUR SCARRED BODY CREEPS EVERY WOMAN OUT, DRIVING THEM AWAY; I’VE HAD TO WASTE SO MUCH MONEY TO DISSUADE COPS WHO CAME CAUSE OF YA!”

His body was thrown to the other side of the room, leaving another dent in the wall and causing dust to now cover his shirt.

Shakily picking himself up while groaning, anger surged in his eyes when he felt the state of his body.

“YOU DON’T PAY RENT, DON'T GIVE ME MONEY, AND YOUR DAMN BODY DOESN’T EVEN BRING ANYONE OVER! YOU'RE NOT EVEN A GIRL, SO YOU CAN’T GIVE IT TO ME PERSONALLY.”

His eyes grew cold—too cold for a 12-year-old—as the boy once again remembered that his father was Living. Breathing. Human. Trash.

“CAN’T EVEN SELL YA CAUSE YOU'RE SO USELESS. IF THAT DOCTOR WAS LYING AND YOU'RE ONE OF THOSE DAMNED QUIRKLESS, I’M GOING TO HAVE SOMEONE HARVEST YOUR ORGANS FOR A COUPLE OF BUCKS.”

His chest was heaving, and seemingly finished with his rant, he walked over to a half-empty bottle on the floor before grabbing it and stumbling into his room, blasting the TV while chugging the entire glass in one gulp.

Outside, the boy lay there for a while, feeling the constant upheaval of his chest before picking himself up, doing his best to not grunt from the pain of his wounds as the adrenaline wore off.

Then, walking to the bathroom, which was thankfully hidden behind a wall from ‘his’ bedroom, he pushed the door inwards, revealing his 'area'.

He sat down on the wooden floor, pushing his sleeping bag to the side as he reached into his backpack and grabbed a roll of gauze he swiped before taking the shards out of him, thankful that they weren’t too deep.

After he did a shoddy job at dressing his wounds, he grabbed his stash of painkillers and quickly took them, using his saliva to guide them down his throat.

Once that was done, he collapsed down on the collection of blankets, which hadn’t been washed in ages.

He pulled the bathroom door back open so that it blocked his area, giving him some privacy from ‘that’ man when he went on his nightly piss, lest he catch sight of Ken while in a foul mood again.

With searing rage hidden below his gray eyes, he thought, ‘Quirk? You’d better pray my quirk isn’t powerful, or I'll...'

Unfortunately, the fatigue caught up to him, and with no other task delegated to his mind, he fell asleep, enjoying the little bit of rest he could get.

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