February, 2XXX
The alarm went off at 3:45 AM.
Izuku's hand shot out and crushed the snooze button before his brain fully registered consciousness. He lay there for exactly three seconds, staring at the ceiling of his room, listening to the sound of his own breathing.
Last day. The final boss fight. Ten months of absolute hell distilled into one morning.
He sat up. The movement was fluid, effortless, like his body had forgotten what stiffness was. Seven months ago, mornings had been a negotiation between his skeleton and his muscles about who hated him more. Now his body just worked. No complaints. No protests. It simply obeyed.
He walked to his closet and pulled out the weights.
They'd gotten heavier over the months. Hano's philosophy on progression was simple: if Izuku could complete a task without contemplating his own mortality, the task was too easy. The old bastard had added weight every two weeks like clockwork. What started at 150kg had grown into a monster.
200 kilograms total, spread across custom-fitted ankle weights, wrist guards, and a weighted vest that looked like it had been designed by someone who hated the concept of mercy.
Izuku strapped the ankle weights on first. 40kg each. They clicked into place with the familiar weight of gravity deciding to take their relationship to the next level. Then the wrist guards. 20kg per arm. He flexed his fingers, testing the range of motion. Perfect. Finally, the vest. 80kg of concentrated suffering disguised as training equipment.
He stood up.
The weights settled against his frame like they belonged there. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the pull of resistance, the constant reminder that he was carrying the equivalent of two full-grown men on his body at all times.
It felt normal.
I've either transcended humanity or I've gone completely insane. Possibly both. Definitely both.
He caught his reflection in the mirror on the way out of his room and stopped.
The kid who'd started this journey ten months ago had vanished. Completely. Erased from existence by ten months of Hano's brand of education.
What stood in the mirror now was something else entirely.
Izuku had grown another two centimeters. 186cm of height that he wore with the casual menace of someone who'd learned that presence was half the fight. His frame had filled out, but not in the bulky, top-heavy way of gym rats who cared more about mirrors than function. This was the build of a fighter. Lean, dense muscle that coiled under his skin like compressed steel. His shoulders were broader, his waist narrow, his arms corded with visible definition even at rest.
His face had sharpened. The baby fat was gone. What remained was all angles and shadows, framed by forest-green hair that he'd started keeping shorter on the sides. The freckles were still there, constellations across his cheeks, but they looked different now. Less "cute kid" and more "dangerously attractive problem."
His eyes were the worst part. Or the best part, depending on who was looking. They were the same green, but the softness was gone. What stared back at him from the mirror was the gaze of someone who'd spent ten months learning exactly how much pain a human body could endure and then pushed past it anyway.
I look like I could break someone in half. Hell, I probably could. That's wild. Also kind of hot. I'm definitely using this.
He grabbed a protein bar from the kitchen, scrawled a note for his mom, and headed out into the pre-dawn darkness.
The walk to Takoba Beach was muscle memory by now. His feet knew every crack in the sidewalk, every uneven patch of pavement. The city was still asleep, windows dark, streets empty except for the occasional taxi carrying someone home from a night shift or a very good time.
Izuku's footsteps were silent despite the 200kg of weight. That had taken months to learn. How to move without announcing his presence to everything within a five-block radius. How to distribute the load so his joints didn't scream with every step. How to make his body forget that what he was doing was technically impossible.
He turned the corner that led to the beach access path and stopped.
The sun hadn't risen yet, but the sky was beginning to lighten. Shades of deep blue bleeding into purple, stars fading one by one like they were clocking out for the day.
And spread out before him, illuminated by the faint pre-dawn glow, was the beach.
Holy shit.
It was clean.
Not "mostly clean with a few piles left." Not "getting there." Not "you can almost see the sand if you squint."
It was pristine.
The sand stretched out in smooth, unbroken waves, pale and soft, meeting the ocean in a gentle gradient of wet to dry. The water itself sparkled, catching the first hints of dawn and throwing them back like scattered diamonds. The air smelled like salt and sea breeze, clean and fresh, with absolutely zero notes of rust, rot, or regret.
Izuku stood at the edge of the stairs that led down to the sand and just stared.
Ten months ago, this place had been a graveyard. A monument to human laziness and corporate irresponsibility. Mountains of trash as far as the eye could see, piled so high they blocked the view of the ocean.
Now it looked like something out of a travel brochure.
I did this. I actually did this. I moved an entire landfill with my bare hands because a crazy old man told me it would make me stronger.
And standing in the middle of that clean, beautiful beach, arms crossed, wearing the same god-awful Hawaiian shirt he'd been wearing for ten months, was Hano.
The old man looked exactly the same. Spiky white hair defying physics. Face like a cliff that had been in a few too many rockslides. Dark eyes that missed absolutely nothing.
He wasn't sitting on a refrigerator this time.
Because there was only one piece of trash left on the entire beach.
The refrigerator. The same massive, industrial-sized beast that Hano had used as his throne on day one. It sat alone in the center of the sand, door hanging open, a final remnant of what this place used to be.
Izuku walked down the stairs. His feet hit the sand, and for the first time in ten months, it wasn't littered with broken glass or hidden shards of metal. It was just sand. Soft. Warm. Normal.
He stopped a few meters from Hano.
The old man looked him up and down. His expression gave away absolutely nothing. No pride. No disappointment. Just that same neutral, vaguely terrifying assessment that Izuku had learned to associate with incoming pain.
"You finished," Hano said. His voice was flat, matter-of-fact, like Izuku had just completed a grocery run instead of a ten-month odyssey of suffering.
"Looks that way," Izuku replied. He kept his voice casual, but his heart was hammering in his chest. This was it. The final moment. Whatever came next would define whether the last ten months had been worth it or just an elaborate exercise in masochism.
Hano tilted his head toward the weights.
"Take them off."
Izuku blinked.
"For real?"
"For real, real."
He reached down and unclasped the ankle weights first. They hit the sand with two heavy thuds that sent up small clouds of dust. 80kg gone, just like that. His legs felt strange. Too light. Like they might just float away if he wasn't careful.
The wrist guards came next. He dropped them beside the ankle weights. His arms felt like they belonged to someone else. Someone who'd been living on the moon.
Finally, the vest. He unhooked the clasps, shrugged it off his shoulders, and let it fall.
The absence of weight was so profound it was almost painful.
Izuku stood there, unarmored for the first time in ten months, and his entire body sang.
His muscles felt like coiled springs. His bones felt like they'd been replaced with something lighter, stronger. Every breath came easier. Every movement was effortless. He shifted his weight experimentally and nearly stumbled because his body had forgotten what it was like to move without resistance.
I feel like I could jump over a building. Or run through a wall. Or just fly. Is this what Quirk users feel like all the time? Because if so, I get why they're all so smug about it.
Hano watched him adjust, that same unreadable expression on his weathered face.
Then, without warning, the old man dropped into a stance.
It was a stance Izuku knew intimately. Had seen a thousand times. Had been on the receiving end of more pain from that stance than he cared to remember.
Hano's feet were shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, weight centered. His hands were loose, relaxed, positioned to deflect or strike depending on what the situation called for. His eyes were locked on Izuku with the focus of a predator that had just spotted something interesting.
"Show me."