Anxiety, Impatience, and a Sense of Crisis!

A cool breeze swept through his hair, his body was covered in the sweat of exertion, and the blue sky stretched behind him.

"Twenty-nine... thirty... thirty-one..."

This was the place in the elementary school closest to the sky: the roof of the school building.

"Forty-five... forty-six..."

Uraraka Shige was using it as a temporary workout spot.

That was right. Obviously, he had been kicked out of the classroom again for deliberately causing trouble during class.

"Fifty!"

Uraraka Shige finished his fiftieth push-up and let out the breath he had been holding in his chest. He collapsed, utterly drained, and lay sprawled on the rooftop floor, his face twisting with frustration.

"What the heck... I can only do fifty... tsk!"

The earlier call from the police—or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a notification?

Uraraka Shige had heard the news about the "villain group" responsible for severing his arm loud and clear.

When he learned that one of the "villains" in that group had not been caught and was still at large, Uraraka Shige was immediately reminded of the pain of losing his arm, which had sent him straight into a coma.

It even caused his left arm to twitch and spasm occasionally for three days in a row.

The news and his body's real response to hearing it gave rise to an intensely powerful sense of crisis in his heart. He couldn't help thinking of the plots about escaped criminals seeking malicious revenge that appeared in the TV dramas and other films and shows he had watched in his previous life...

Under the influence of that sense of crisis and his paranoid fear of being victimized, he abandoned his plan to grow stronger by balancing work and rest. Instead, he began frantically using every bit of free time and every spare moment he could find to train his body and hone his Quirk.

However... the results were far from satisfactory.

He had spent more than half a month training at this intensity, and his family had provided him with plenty of food and nutrition. They had even gone to such lengths to supply the nutrients Uraraka Shige's body needed that his parents and older sister were all considerably worse off than in previous years.

He could now see faint muscle definition and bulges on his body.

Yet his strength still fell short of that of an ordinary adult man. He could only compare himself to people who remained frail and sickly even as adults, or addicts whose bodies had been depleted by years of abuse...

He might possibly have a slight edge over them.

Of course, his body and Quirk had indeed grown considerably stronger. Previously, even when he had enhanced a full-force kick twice with his Quirk and struck the vital point at the back of the neck precisely, he had only been able to knock an adult man unconscious.

Now, without even using his Quirk to strengthen his kick, he could kill an ordinary or subhealthy adult man as long as he struck a fatal point such as the throat.

But...

"It's not enough. Too slow... it's too slow!"

Uraraka Shige lay facedown on the rooftop, his eyes utterly filled with frustration.

He thought of the protagonist of the original story, who had previously been a middle schooler too weak to truss a chicken. Yet after ten months of hellish training under Toshinori Yagi, he had been able to crudely wield the power contained within the Quirk inherited from "the No. 1 hero-All Might."

Granted, that was only part of the power, and using it subjected Midoriya to a corresponding backlash and inflicted corresponding injuries on him.

But it was still enough power to punch a huge hole through an entire building from bottom to top!

And power meant the ability to protect oneself!

The ability to protect oneself meant safety! It meant that if the "villain" still at large really learned that he had taken part in the action in which that "villain group" was defeated by a "hero," and really came to take revenge on him and his family, he would be able to protect himself and his family from harm—and even turn the tables and give the fugitive "villain" a clear taste of defeat.

But... he couldn't do that yet. As he was now, he couldn't even break a rock—no, he couldn't even damage a slightly thick tree. With fists this weak!

"I can't protect myself at all!"

And if he couldn't even protect himself...

"Then I definitely can't protect my parents and older sister in this life!"

Uraraka Shige endured the aching, swelling and twisting, stabbing pain in his arms. He forced himself up with both hands and turned over onto his back, then clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.

"What am I supposed to do... what should I do?! At this rate, I won't even be able to protect myself and my family if we face a 'villain'!"

Besides, he had other things to do too...

"And I still have to repay All Might for saving my life!"

Uraraka Shige kept straining, his whole body tensing as though he wanted an outlet, but there was nowhere for him to vent. In the end, the tension slowly drained from his body, and he gasped heavily, as though he had just been through a great battle, his mind completely blank.

"Hah... hah..."

The wind on the rooftop was gentle but cool. It brushed past him, and because he was drenched in sweat, he shivered violently twice. Then, as though prompted by the chill, he remembered something.

"One... two... three..."

If his arms were too tired to move properly, he would do sit-ups. If his waist and abdomen ran out of strength too, he would do squats. If he couldn't manage any more squats, he would walk slowly. If he couldn't walk, he would crawl. If he couldn't crawl, he would roll! One day, he would train until he was strong enough!

That was what he thought, but in truth he knew that, even setting aside how long it would take him to grow stronger by training this way and what would count as strong enough, he simply couldn't do it. He couldn't put the idea into practice.

His willpower was limited.

At his core, he was a weakling.

Selfish and weak... like an ant...

Fortunately, though he couldn't persevere with such severity, he could at least work toward his goal.

So heaven wouldn't be too hard on him while he was still striving, would it?

...And in fact, there was one thing he had yet to realize.

In the original story, after ten months of training, Midoriya had been a middle school graduate about to enter U.A. High School, while his own body was only seven years old, and he had just started elementary school.

In the original story, the reason Midoriya had been able to punch through an entire building used as a training site during an indoor simulation was mainly that he had used his Quirk, and he had paid for it with a broken arm.

And the reason he couldn't shatter a rock or even do anything to a slightly thick tree was that he was relying solely on the strength his seven-year-old body could muster, without using his Quirk.

He wasn't strong now and didn't even have enough power to protect himself, but that didn't mean he was weak. Even among the strong characters in the original story, probably not many had done better when their bodies were only seven years old, right?

He was undoubtedly outstanding. He had an outstanding Quirk, and an outstanding heart and desire that yearned for "strength."

For the past half month, his judgment had merely been affected by the anxiety brought on by his memories of losing his arm, the sense of crisis and fear of retaliation after learning that a "villain" was still at large, and his impatience to become strong enough before any potentially nonexistent retaliation came and before he repaid All Might for saving his life three years later. As a result, he had been unable to stay calm and assess himself objectively.

After all, his body was only seven years old, and what he could do was truly limited. Besides... even half a month, if counted carefully, was only two weeks. How much stronger could just two weeks of deliberate training make him?

Was he supposed to compare himself with the protagonist of the original story, who had been nearly ten years older than him and trained for ten months?