Chapter Text
Ryuji knew he wasn’t the smartest kid, never had been. He knew how people saw him though, what thoughts splashed across their minds in bold neon colours like paintings on display. His mom said it was a gift, that he was empathetic. To a seven year old with a solid C minus average and a chip on his shoulder in the shape of his old man’s hands, it was hard to hear anything beyond ‘pathetic’.
Ryuji was a simple kind of guy. He didn’t see the world in rose golds or metaphors; he was good at reacting, at running and digging deep to fight to be faster. To him, running wasn’t some transformation, some complex flowery image of mountains and sunlight. It just, was. He was good at it, so he ran. Simple.
Some people also described Ryuji as ‘gifted’, said he had ‘potential’. The same people who tutted at him and wagged their fingers when he didn’t follow some imaginary rule book everyone else apparently had memorized and expected him to play the part in. Other people said he had authority issues, that he was a delinquent. Some people thought it in bold broad letters, packed away tightly behind their thin lipped smiles, and pretended to forget what his quirk was anyways. Maybe they figured he was too dumb to put it together, that he could see the picture but not get the context. He didn’t have to get underlying symbolisms or know what the silences between words meant to understand, though. Ryuji learned at a young age that most adults didn’t know very much at all.
So what if Ryuji didn’t know how to divide the long way, if he didn’t understand words like ‘economy’ or ‘detention’ or ‘keeping your mouth shut and using your inside voice’. None of that mattered in the real ways.
Ryuji had, for the longest time, understood four key things, and needed nothing else.
One:
In life, quirks were everything.
Powerful quirks shot people from humble beginnings into the limelight, gave them money and fame and all the things in between. People with awesome quirks became awesome, people born with might became the mighty.
And everyone else got stepped on underneath.
His dad had been born with an incredible skill; enhancement , they’d said, born to be a hero . With his ability to focus his strength into his fists, he could break through steel doors! And lamps, and walls, and hearts, and everything good and fragile in between. Whatever.
His dad had been powerful, sure. He’d also been an asshole, and a drinker, and he’d left bruises like purple scars everywhere he touched. Ryuji hated him, and eventually so did everyone else.
The day his dad debuted to the world as a villain had been shocking, supposedly. To the media and the papers he’d been an ‘upstanding citizen’, born to be a hero, they’d said, with a shrug and a sort of half pout as if to say ‘no one could have predicted this’; like their shock was worth noting. As if it changed anything when his dad had ended up on TV laughing like he was orchestrating a choir as he destroyed half of downtown. As if ‘oopsie’ meant anything to a small boy with a rainbow of band aids and broken bones an enough memories stacked up in messy piles to spell out a frustrated ‘I told you so’.
Two:
People heard what they wanted to hear. Believed what they wanted to believe.
They heard the name Sakamoto, and before Ryuji had so much as raised a hand to wave they expected a fist.
Three:
His mother had always said, with her soft smile and her soft hands carding through his hair, that there were still good things. There’s always something good, Ryuji, you just have to find it.
His mom was the good thing, he’d thought, holding her as tightly as his pudgy arms would let. And the dogs at the dog park that wagged their tails at him, and the lady down the street who gave him ice cream on his way home from school, and his favorite dinosaur collection. It was a long list that he added to every day, but his mom was the best good thing.
He didn’t know why he felt everything so much, the first time a puppy wagged his tail at him he burst into tears. Ryuji was a weird kid, probably. His heart was always so full, love like a bucket overflowing in his chest, and anger like thunder as shadowed as the night itself. His mom had called it a ‘touch’; a cute way of saying ‘your quirk is really lame, actually, good luck kiddo.’ He got his mother’s quirk mixed in with his father’s, a little bit of good with a whole lot of worry.
His mother was an empath, a very focused kind that had initially set her on a very prestigious path, one where she’d met Ryuji’s father. Not born to be a hero, but born to help people, born to heal. She was soft and friendly and warm and Ryuji loved her very, very much, even when she was angry or sad and everything around them felt muddled and grey. She called Ryuji her personal sunshine, back when he was little. Said he projected happiness no matter how gloomy the day got. Somewhere along the line he’d lost that particular talent.
The fourth thing Ryuji learned came with bruised knuckles, a park on a sunny afternoon, and the first time he’d ever heard the word ‘quirkless’.
He didn’t remember much about the details, only that there’d been a boy with glasses too big for his face, only that a kid had laughed when he’d kicked him, only that his fist was driving into the same toothy grin before he’d thought to move.
Ryuji remembered the principal visit, then the counsellors office after. He remembered kind brown eyes and the way for a split second, someone had believed he could be more than his past.
“You’re a brave boy, Ryuji. Not just anyone would stand up to a bully, you know.” Ryuji thought that was sad, really. It was pretty easy to be brave when you knew everyone was afraid of you, even if Ryuji was more afraid of them. Maybe the lady hadn’t heard who he was the way everyone else had.
“I think you have a bright future ahead of you,” She smiled. “Courage like that? I daresay you have the makings of a brilliant hero.”
Ryuji felt like crying, he remembered, or yelling. “It’s not nice to lie,” he’d said. His mom had taught him that. Only villains lie.
“Why would I be lying, dear?” Ryuji remembered the particular way she’d tilted her head, the way her light hair shifted and her brows drew up all tight and sad. Ryuji hadn’t known what to say, his eight year old brain struggling to package up all of the words he’d heard, all of the glances and whispers teachers thought he couldn’t hear. He couldn’t explain to himself the way he just knew that a path had already been set out for him. The sun rose high in the sky and Ryuji could never be a hero. 1 plus 1 equals two, easy stuff, even for a dummy like him. Duh.
“You know,” the counsellor said again after a moment, shifting closer in her seat, shoulders loose and friendly. “Quirks can vary so much; some people have shields, some have amazing strength. I knew a lady once who could change her hair colour when she was excited.” She smiled at him. “I guess it’s like how some people are really smart at math, and some people are really good at talking to big audiences. You know what I think you’re really good at?”
Ryuji couldn’t remember how he’d felt in that exact moment, only that he’d known then to hold her words tightly against his heart. “What?”
“I think you have an amazing heart, you know when people need help and you’re not afraid to help them.”
“That’s not a talent.” He’d frowned.
“Mm, maybe not in the usual way. But it’s just like being a really good listener, or a fast runner, right? If you use those in the right way, you can do amazing things. I think,” she paused, leaning back a little in her chair. “I think you should try to help as many people as you can, I think that would be a wonderful talent to have.”
Ryuji learned that day that a hero was just a word, that it wasn’t like ‘teacher’ or ‘doctor’ or ‘dad’, it wasn’t something people gave you the way Ryuji had thought. For a long time, when Ryuji thought of heroes he thought of a lady with kind eyes in a leather chair.
It was okay, then, for a while, that people heard his name and filled in the blanks. It was okay that they whispered and ran away at recess. It was okay that he wasn’t born to be a hero the way his dad was.
Ryuji would much rather be born to help.
His mother had said wanting to help was its own kind of heroics; she’d had a bruise like a handprint splashed across her cheek but she’d held him with a smile so wide it burned when he’d told her that he wanted to be her hero one day.
Maybe Ryuji was too dumb to figure out the nuances, maybe he thought of things as far too ‘right’ vs. ‘wrong’. Maybe he couldn’t understand how to separate actions into thoughts and consequences, and he reacted too much on emotions and instinct alone, but he was stubborn and determined, and he worked hard for what he wanted.
He ran every day to school, he watched every video, he stared with wide eyes every time a hero talked to his school or fought nearby. Ryuji would be that one day, he’d decided, and that was all there was to it.
The last day of junior high he handed in his papers, all shark grinned and unbreakable, U.A. proudly written by the number one choice. He left every other box blank.
He’d gotten into the try outs by an almost too small margin, but his mom and him had celebrated like he’d won the lottery.
The U.A. itself was intimidating, all full of nervous newbies and looming walls and far too many staring eyes. Nobody knew who he was, though. For once. Nobody in the sea of prospective heroes had so much as turned towards him with nervous eyes. Ryuji felt their nervous tension like wires under his skin, he’d been afraid at first too, but something in the way kids brushed shoulders uncaringly and didn’t flinch away from him made him braver. He fought it down and swallowed hard and everything else he could to build himself up big enough that no one would believe fear sat anywhere close to his heart.
The try out itself was different than he’d been expecting. Robots with painted numbers stomping down long stretches of nothing. Destroying things was easy, but it wasn’t what he wanted. It stung somewhere in his chest every time he kicked or smashed or broke things, too many echoes of broken walls and door hinges, too many similarities. The sound of metal crunching under his legs as electric shockwaves rippled outwards was difficult enough to think beyond.
His focus was shot two minutes in when a nearby boy had frozen up, his fear ice picking directly against Ryuji’s chest. Ryuji had instinctively dived in. Some other hero had misfired, some kind of projectile quirk aimed too close to another student, too fast for him to dodge.
Ryuji remembered running forwards, as natural as it had ever been, and seeing the fear bright eyes of a small boy with shaggy black hair and far too many scrapes, turn abruptly into surprise. He didn’t remember hitting the ground.
For a moment, launching himself forwards with arms outstretched, he’d felt like he was flying.
Ryuji woke up later in the medical wing, with a nurse frowning at him for his recklessness and lecturing him half to unconsciousness again. He appreciated the concern, to some extent, and felt her exasperation like a bad fizzy drink under his tongue, but he didn’t care. The boy was okay, they’d said. He even burst into the room later all bows and embarrassment until Ryuji had laughed and called him a dumbass and made him swear not to mention it.
Something between pride and hope kept his injuries from mattering to him, the scars that would no doubt criss cross his back were a mark of accomplishment.
Ryuji and his mother had sat hunched close together later that week with an envelope clutched nervously between them, his mother talking in soft tones about how ‘whatever happened, he’d still be her hero.’ Cheesy as hell, but his eyes still misted over though as a wobbly smile broke through his nerves.
She’d cried when Ryuji showed her the bright red Accepted stamped across the bottom of his letter, Ryuji cried after when he watched the short video clip that came with it.
“Your performance was mediocre at best,” it had started, a grumpy looking man with a beard and droopy eyes and a pink shirt explained. Ryuji felt his gut squeeze with the criticism. “Your quirk is clearly undeveloped, so there will need to be more training. No slacking off permitted, in this life you only have yourself to blame for your inadequacy. But,” the man rubbed the bridge of his nose under his glasses. “a true hero isn’t measured by pure skill alone. It doesn’t matter how tough you are, or how flashy your moves are if you can’t apply them to where it really counts. You, Sakamoto, are reckless and took no account for your own well being. You had no regard for the consequences of your actions and acted impulsively. You saved a classmate and put yourself in danger, like an idiot. And yet, also. Like a true hero.”
“Ryuji Sakamoto, welcome to the U.A.”
Ryuji had started classes with wide eyed wonderment, thinking, on a loop like a mantra that these people would show him what heroes were supposed to be. That he’d finally be able to help, that maybe now, when people heard the name Sakamoto they’d smile. He’d hoped, for a wild moment, that they'd replace the purple crescent moons in his dreams with twinkling starlight in his thoughts.
Their instructional videos were bright, hopeful. Full of over the top positivity and lots of big name heroes giving their seal of approval. The classes were tough and demanding, pushing the limits of everything he’d known. He’d loved everything about it.
“Your quirk relies on focus,” a teacher sighed, her yellow sweater glaring at him like it could physically disapprove of him in the sunlight. “You can’t channel the strength you need into your legs if you can’t stay focused. Your strength and speed is admirable, though. Keep working.”
“Impressive quirk,” the pink shirted man from his acceptance video said. “Not going to make much of a hero if you keep charging in like a dumbass, though. Think before you move, Sakamoto.”
Ryuji listened attentively in class, as best as he could with his own excitement twisting between the thrumming energy of his classmates. He pushed himself to his limits in training, signed up for after class workouts to push even harder.
“When do we get to help people?” He asked his homeroom teacher, a few months in. They’d been talking about finding their weaknesses, about strategies, about sidekicks and costumes and thinking outside of the box. Ryuji was practically vibrating with the information, but he’d always been terrible at book smarts.
Being a hero was all about taking action, and he’d seen the news reports every morning. People needed help now and every day, they needed heroes.
“Help people? Hah,” his teacher smirked down at him, his dark curly hair casting strange shadows against his tired eyes; Ryuji took an instinctive step back and then frowned in confusion at himself. “Helping people’s only for the real heroes, Sakamoto.”
Ryuji forgot, for a moment, between his enthusiasm and his studies, that Sakamoto was a name that cast a long shadow. The divot between his homeroom teacher’s brow was ominous, the sudden anger Ryuji felt in waves from the man, sharpened with the downward twitch of his lips, locked tight around Ryuji’s feet.
Sakamoto was a wrecking ball.
He stumbled once, in practice. It felt like the world was waiting for him to fall, for a moment, like they were watching and holding their breath.
He didn’t fall.
They worked in groups, sometimes, for drills and practice exercises. He was paired up with their newly elected class president for a challenge meant to give them all a taste of each other’s abilities. Makoto had gotten into the U.A. on recommendations, he’d felt the twang of jealousy of several classmates when it was announced he’d be working with her.
Their mission was to capture the flag from another pair of students; Makoto was good at planning, Ryuji was good at offense, he’d walked into the building with nearly unflinching confidence.
Winning had been as easy as Makoto had predicted too. Ryuji was good at firing people up, after all. He used strong emotions as fuel, so it came down to a matter of finding the right buttons to press to rattle his opponents enough to chase him, then simply turn around and unleash it all back.
“Man, it must really suck to be beaten by a dumbass like me, huh?” He laughed, the boy on the other team was panting, anger outlining his every move in broad neon lights. Makoto was probably close to stealing their flag already, Ryuji just had to keep their main brute strength angry and focused only on him while she took out the weaker boy guarding their target.
Ryuji expected frustration and anger, and it was there in part. He channeled it greedily into the electric current building in his feet. There was something else mixed in, though. Something that moved sluggishly and made his strength falter for half a second.
The other boy growled, fists clenching at his sides as his goopy form changed shape and size. “Should have expected tricks and bullshit from you,” he spat.
“What?” That was… different.
The boy took a menacing step forwards, Ryuji refocused himself and shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. He’d seen the guy move when he attacked, he was pretty fast and all at once.
“Did you think none of us would remember?” There was something in the air, an emotion he couldn’t place, sweat broke out against Ryuji’s neck, his hackles rose. He didn’t have to knock the boy out or anything, he realized. Makoto was probably there already, he’d distracted long enough.
“Sakamoto,” the boy glared. “I know who you are.”
The boy surged forwards, slime and gooey limbs blasting his direction like a cascading waterfall. He was faster than Ryuji remembered, maybe faster than he’d ever shown the class.
But Ryuji was faster.
They won, as easily as Makoto expected, as easily as everyone in their class expected, but there were no hi-fives or cheers afterwards. No congratulations from any of the teachers. Only wide eyed stares as every angle of the hallway played in loops on giant screens where everyone awaited them. Ryuji’s body a lit like a bolt of lightning, pure uncontrollable anger. ‘Sakamoto, I know who you are.’
Ryuji was stopped by a girl with large pigtails after class a few weeks later. He blinked, not expecting to find Ann, an old middle school friend, who seemed not quite displeased, but something bordering on disappointment. Something burnt out and ashy in his throat.
“That was some show you put on,” she said, arching an eyebrow at him. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”
He crossed his arms, feeling the stiff electric tension of the room like an elastic band around his lungs. “You saw the video.” It wasn’t a question, nearly everyone in the school had. Ryuji blowing up in a practice exercise, his last name burnt into every glance his direction.
She mirrored him, crossing her arms and leaning her weight on one hip. “Thought you wanted to be a hero, Sakamoto. Or did you change your mind?”
He remembered seeing her across the playground years ago, her quirk manifesting early on. A manipulation quirk, he remembered hearing. Ann wasn’t on the hero track immediately, not like some of his other classmates, she’d been set on the support track early on. Something about her quirk bringing out the ‘true heart’ in other people, about intentions coming to light. A lot of vague terminology and shifting glances. All Ryuji could tell was that people shied away from her, said things behind her back, smiled tightly and nervously when she caught their eye.
She always wore gloves, long elbow length gloves tucked underneath her shirt sleeves, and leggings under her uniform skirt.
“She’ll be an R rated hero, for sure,” he’d heard some teachers whisper, the words meant nothing to him but he’d seen the way Ann’s eyebrows furrowed and decided he didn’t care for anything anyone said about her. People’s assumptions stuck like tar to the bright optimism she carried. Because she was pretty, because she was different.
Ryuji understood how expectations sunk claws into the vulnerable parts of your heart and never quite let go.
They’d been friends, once. All chubby, sticky fingers and Ryuji pushing a juice box across an off white table. All hopeful half smiles and side glances. “I think your hair's nice,” he’d said. Or something like that. She’d stared at him, something in her blue eyes seemed oddly fragile, like she was waiting.
“I don’t like orange juice,” she’d whispered, carefully twining her fingers together in her lap. “Okay! Tomorrow let’s have apple juice.” He grinned back at her confused expression until she nodded, a tiny awkward smile on her lips.
She seemed surprised to see him the next day, which made no sense to Ryuji. A promise was a promise.
“I brought two apple juices!” He announced happily, “That way we can both have one!”
She’d looked at him strangely, but quietly accepted his gift with a bob of her head.
Ryuji told his mom he really liked apple juice, not the fizzy drinks, and packed two every day. Ann never had packed lunches, or any juice boxes. Just bills and change and scrawled hearts on post-its. Ryuji didn’t mind sharing.
“Why aren’t you avoiding me?” Ann asked once, her bottom lip jutting outwards and a blush high on her cheeks when Ryuji handed her his usual gift. Ryuji cocked his head to the side.
“You don’t avoid me, ” he said back, it seemed simple enough, but Ann’s shock was jarring in the coziness of their classroom. “Do you not wanna hang out with me?” He asked. It wouldn’t be the first time, or the last.
Ann frowned, “no, it’s okay,” she said after a moment. “You’re nice.”
She slumped back into her chair, a warm relief cresting against her gloved hands that made Ryuji smile. “You’re nice, too.”
They didn’t hang out after the bell rang, but between the bent doorframes and hiding spaces, there wasn’t room for anyone outside of whispered giggles beside the coat racks anyways. After a while, Ryuji convinced his mom to pack two lunches, just in case someone was hungry at school. His mother ruffled his hair fondly and asked him if his new friend would like fruit gummies too.
Sometimes Ann’s bright eyes would catch the purples and blues splashed against his arms. Sometimes Ryuji would catch scrawled words like ‘month’ and ‘sorry’ on her lunch notes. Ryuji saved his allowance and bought nice pastries to share before class. Ann lent him money on school trips, remembered his birthday, asked after his mother.
They’d been friends, once.
“Ann, come on,” he started, stopped when her flat stare didn’t budge. Ryuji bit his lip, letting some of the tension fall from his stance as he did, gaze tracking to the linoleum floor, to sticky fingers and apple juice. “I’m tryin’ okay? It’s just… it’s-” he hesitated, glancing up to catch the way Ann’s eyes widened at his softer tone, like she’d expected only hard edges. Like she’d only pieced together who Ryuji was during those years they lost contact, like Sakamoto was just a name to her. Like they’d never shared anything more than a few packed lunches and whispers years ago. He frowned, straightening up.
He’d thought, maybe for a moment that her blue eyes had sparkled with recognition, looking at Ryuji. That she’d see beyond the words that bit and dug and threw salt into too new wounds. He’d thought maybe Ann, the girl everyone looked at and assumed they had all figured out, would understand.
“It doesn’t matter. Forget it. I’m going to be a hero, alright? I’ll prove it.”
She didn’t have to understand, Ryuji didn’t need friends anyways.
The school festival approached with a buzz of nervous energy. Everyone saw it as their golden opportunity; their chance to make it to the big times, to get the recognition as the hero they knew they were always meant to be. Ryuji carefully circled the date in red and crossed off the days in blues.
Maybe if Ryuji won, things would be different. Maybe if he won, he’d find a hero to take him under their wing and help him control his destructive side. Maybe he’d get paid really well and his mom could finally move out of their broken cracked house and live somewhere nicer. Somewhere with new memories, where they never ran out of food or warmth or working air conditioning or money for rent. Somewhere his mom could finally scrub away those dark lines and tired frowns like they were nothing but stains on a tile floor.
He worked the courage up after weeks of worrying, and asked Ann if she would help him work on controlling his quirk. She’d looked so annoyed for a moment he was sure she’d just turn around and forget him entirely. Which would have been fine, really. He wasn’t looking for after school hang outs, something more like coworkers, a little less like teammates.
“Shiho’s better at that than I am,” she said with a frown. “Tuesday, after school. I’m assuming you have a place?”
Ryuji’s grin caught him off guard, “Uh, yeah! Y-yeah, the rooftop, I’ll get us in, not a problem!”
She sighed. “Fine, we’ll be there.”
“For real? Than-”
She held a finger up, cutting him off abruptly. “Don’t thank me, I’m not going to let you win the festival or anything.” He caught the undercurrent of soft grudging forgiveness, a side hug after years of silence. Something that seemed almost guilty. Maybe something like understanding after all.
Ryuji laughed, “you’re on Takamaki.”
Shiho ended up being a quiet, nervous girl in their grade with big sad eyes and an aura of so much hurt Ryuji almost choked. It was familiar in a way nothing should ever be familiar, even the way she wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“Ann says you’re an empath?” Her voice was friendly, almost a whisper.
“Ah,” Ryuji rubbed his neck. “Kinda. Sorry.”
People got uncomfortable sometimes, when they found out he could read their emotions like they were strobe lights above their heads. Shiho’s anxiety was a vibrant sickly green, like a flower blooming in the center of her chest. Or a wildfire. Ryuji felt the coiled heat of it like a supernova burning just a few galaxies over. She gave him a long searching look, Ryuji tried his best to not read the myriad of colours pouring from her.
“It’s fine,” she said. I’m fine.
Abruptly, like a flower closing its petals, all that remained around Shiho was a pleasant grey buzz. Bland and unassuming.
Ryuji nodded, clenching his jaw. Ann stepped closer, her shoes tapping too loudly in the sudden quiet.
“So, let’s get to work then, okay?”
Ann had learned control through necessity, years ago. She’d been born of two high profile heroes who’d more or less packed up and moved to the big city the minute she’d been born. She spent quality time with them through a long series of post-its and missed calls and inordinately large monthly sums of money. It didn’t do well to have the daughter of the fourth and fifth most popular heroes in the media for publicly using a manipulation quirk. That was a villains quirk, after all. Ryuji remembered how packed her schedule outside of school had been, between different coaches and meetings and practices, and different media events on top of that.
Kids avoided her at school because she would make people say things, or so they’d said. That she could mind control them into saying awful, horrible lies. To a group of grade school kids, lying was the worst offense imaginable, lying got you grounded and made you miss recess and meant lectures and disappointment. When they got older it meant humiliation, exposing things that maybe weren’t as untruthful as one pretended.
Nobody said anything to her face, of course, but like oil in water, Ann was always at the perfect center of an untouchable field.
Ryuji had been as oblivious then as he was now, and didn’t care either way.
Ann always wore long gloves, always. Ryuji asked once but she’d flashed so strongly with fear and panic that he’d immediately regretted saying anything. They’d hung out so often he’d gotten used to her company, looked forwards to it every day with the same childlike excitement of meeting a puppy. Of having his first friend. Chasing her away would have been awful, so he’d never asked anything else. Of course, they’d drifted apart anyways. Different schools over different years. A frown and a cocked hip in an empty hallway.
Ann’s quirk didn’t manipulate people, it just made them tell the truth. Ryuji knew first hand the truth wasn’t always better.
Shiho’s father as it turned out, had a quirk that reacted depending on what he was feeling. Shiho had picked up tips on centering yourself, on letting anger travel through you, about not letting yourself grab hold.
Ryuji was grateful, greedily soaking up every piece of advice. His focus was his downfall. He got caught up in feelings just as much as he played between the strings of other peoples flashes of colours and light. Anger was the worst though, anger made explosions like a lightning storm wrapped inside of a hurricane that he had no control over.
Ann gave him a strange look when he said as much.
“What?” He worked on stretching out his legs, shaking his ankles and pulling his knee tight to his chest.
“Are you sure anger was what you were feeling the other day? In that hallway during practice?”
Ryuji bristled, a retort bright on his tongue. Her eyes were calculating, like she was trying to solve a puzzle, but something in her screamed reeling blues of pity. He hesitated.
Ann shifted her weight, losing her rough edges for a moment. “Cause to me…. It looked more like you were scared.”
“Heroes don’t get scared,” Ryuji insisted, a coil of something close to panic igniting in his veins.
Shiho and Ann shared a look. Ann shrugged. “Some do.”
Ryuji placed walls up high, squared his shoulders. “Not me.” He said with as much finality as he could muster, “Show me that breathing thing again.”
The pink shirt guy from the welcome video, Sakura Sojiro as he introduced himself, took the class outside to work on limitations. Everyone was motivated, fire eyes and tight fists. All believing their limits were sky high and then some; Ryuji felt smaller, then. He hated it.
“Every quirk has a limit, just like any other muscle. You can train it to last longer, to push harder, but it’s not unending. Don’t showboat and blow all your energy at once.” He sighed, pushing his hat higher on his forehead. “But, in order to know your limits, you have to test them. Today’s class is all about seeing how far you can push yourselves.”
Ryuji had never tried his quirk to the extreme before. Never wanted to, for good reason. Everyone had seen what happened when Ryuji let himself unleash too much at once, anyways; he focused on what Shiho had said, about breathing and letting thoughts pass through. Ryuji knew his limits in terms of where he refused to let himself go, controlling it was more important.
He watched classmates flex, smirk, and settle into ready poses. Walls splintered, infernos bursted forth, clouds darkened. Each of them was momentary, a fleeting show of impressive strength before they were panting and running on fumes. Ryuji felt the energy thrum, bottled up the adrenaline floating around him, amplified it into his legs, and breathed. A few stray gazes met his as he closed his eyes, he felt their anticipation, their uncertainty. Their worry.
‘I know who you are’
His focus spiralled and fell, strength waning as soon as it had started. Twenty pairs of eyes rolled, lost interest and looked away. Ryuji settled onto the balls of his feet instead, pushing the last dregs of electricity into his toes, and ran.
Sojiro- Boss, he corrected- stopped him on his two thousandth lap. Day had long ago given way to evening and night. Ryuji ran all the way home, too.
The next week passed in fever bursts, Ryuji practiced, and ran, and practiced, and breathed. He ran all the way home before his mother got home from her long shifts at worked, to make sure warm supper would be waiting for her, counted his budget, winced and counted again, and picked up lawn work or dog walking or anything extra he could. The budget stretched thinner, his energy waned lower, but he didn’t slow down.
He kept his eyes on the reward cash prize for first place at the sports festival and trained harder.