Training My Quirk Starts Now!

Sitting on the snow-white hospital bed, Uraraka Shige's blood boiled for a while before the cold reality burned that passion away.

"That's all well and good..."

But how was he supposed to get stronger?

After all, he had only three short years, not even enough time for his Quirk to grow sufficiently, much less for him to fully master this excellent Quirk of his. He couldn't get stronger merely by talking about it, making up his mind, or fooling around at random. If getting stronger were that easy, this world would probably be a high-martial world where immortals walked everywhere and experts were worth less than dogs...

In short, if Uraraka Shige wanted to become strong enough within three years, he needed a plan to match.

And that was precisely why Uraraka Shige's burning passion had suddenly cooled.

"Getting stronger..."

At present, Uraraka Shige had only a rough idea and a goal for how to become strong enough, as well as nearly limitless motivation to achieve that goal.

But that was all. He still lacked a sufficiently detailed plan. If he relied on passion alone, he wouldn't get far even if he managed to keep at it for a long time. Besides, if he truly wanted to repay that debt of gratitude, he had only three years left. Without a plan, acting on enthusiasm alone would be far too slow-too slow to reach his goal within three years.

"Sigh... I really don't know where to start..."

Uraraka Shige hung his head and sighed.

Just as he said, he truly had no idea where to start, but fortunately, that didn't mean there was no solution.

He shook his head vigorously and patted his cheeks with his palms, trying to clear his mind, which had become a mess from all the thinking.

"Since I don't know where to start, I'll just work through it bit by bit!"

When a matter was extremely urgent, cutting through the tangle with one swift stroke was the best and most appropriate approach. But although three years wasn't really a long time, this wasn't so urgent that he couldn't think it through carefully and calmly, unraveling his thoughts, which were tangled like a knot in a rope. That was the better approach.

After all, having little time didn't mean having no time.

And since he intended to sort out his thoughts carefully, the first thing to do was undoubtedly to find a goal!

Uraraka Shige already had one: to grow strong enough within three years to be there for the battle between All Might and All For One, the one three years from now in which All Might would be gravely injured, and prevent the grave injuries All Might was supposed to suffer, thereby repaying him for saving his life.

The fastest way for him to achieve that goal would undoubtedly be to use vast sums of money to obtain plenty of outside support, such as equipment, armies, and intelligence... but he couldn't do that.

And it wasn't just that. Given his limited age and family circumstances, there was really only one approach available to him.

"Improve my physical abilities and 'strengthen' my Quirk."

Uraraka Shige felt as though he had caught a glimmer of inspiration.

As for improving his physical abilities, ever since the year he discovered his Quirk, he had used it to place Heavy Shackles on himself almost every day, strengthening his body and training his control over his Quirk. The practice had been quite effective, which was why he had been able to knock an adult man unconscious with a kick whose power had been enhanced by his Quirk.

So he could continue using this method to improve his physical abilities. It could even become more efficient as his Quirk grew.

So his biggest problem now was...

"My Quirk...? Has my excellent Quirk become a drag on me instead?"

Uraraka Shige murmured this, then pondered it for a while before shaking his head and rejecting the idea.

"No, that's not right... I should say I'm the one dragging down such an excellent Quirk..."

That was the conclusion Uraraka Shige reached.

"There's no question how excellent my Quirk is, so the only reason I can't achieve my goal must be me..."

It was just as he said, but why was that?

"Is it because of the pride I felt when I thought I was the 'protagonist'? I always felt like good things would just fall into my lap, that I'd become strong in the future even without trying..."

Those sorts of unrealistic thoughts.

Uraraka Shige seemed to think that was the reason, but was it really? Was that truly why he was "dragging down" his excellent Quirk?

In fact, on careful consideration, he was different from other children his age. Why? Because his soul was much older than his body. That was what set him apart from his peers, what had allowed him, at only seven years old, to infiltrate a battlefield between "heroes" and "villains," ambush and capture three "villains," and turn the battle around.

But for that very reason, there was one respect in which he was far inferior to other children his age, so much so that he wasn't even qualified to compare himself to them. But what was it?

Something necessary to develop a Quirk, something other than knowledge...

"No... I see... Is that it?"

Uraraka Shige murmured aloud again, seemingly having thought of something.

"My Quirk..."

The techniques for using his Quirk that he had developed so far... rise, level, fall... majesty, burden, shackles... in reality...

"They're nothing more than changing the direction of gravity, or strengthening it to different degrees..."

That was right. He had indeed hit upon the key.

"Imagination... So I don't actually have enough imagination or knowledge to fully draw out my Quirk's potential..."

Uraraka Shige suddenly understood. He had found the root of the problem, and once he had found the key to a problem, he could often find a way to solve it.

And for Uraraka Shige, the simplest way was...

"My previous life... The gifts my previous self left for me, the works from my previous life and the works from this one-even if they're only products of those authors' imaginations, they all represent something I desperately need right now! They're all the fruits of imagination!"

Just as Uraraka Shige said, his Quirk was gravity, and how many things related to gravity appeared in those works of fantasy? Even if there were many he couldn't do or imitate at all, even if he could use his Quirk to produce only one or two out of ten thousand, that would still be enough for him to become a sufficiently powerful expert within three years.

"Then..."

Uraraka Shige took a deep breath and relaxed.

"The rest is simple."

He had a goal, a direction for his efforts, and a way forward. All that remained was to choose a path and work hard to follow it.

But before that...

"I still need to build a solid foundation... If I want to achieve my goal, I can't slack off!"

With that thought, Uraraka Shige activated his Quirk. To take care of his injured left arm, he didn't concentrate the gravity on a single target. Instead, he spread it over a wider area and reduced the increase in gravity, using Heavy Burden to train himself while injured.

But that alone was naturally not enough. He still had plenty of energy to spare, so he decided to do two things at once. While using his Quirk to temper his body, he also kept manipulating the reality of his Quirk around him—the "lines" that only he could see.

And that was what he would be doing for roughly the next year: strengthening his body while improving his control over his Quirk, all the while pushing it to its limits to force it to grow faster, until the moment was right to turn things that appeared only in certain works of fantasy into reality!