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(9 Advanced Chapters)
~~~~~
The fluorescent lights in Shizuoka Middle School's Class 3-B buzzed at an irritating frequency, and Kaito Arisaka couldn't shake the feeling that they were purposely engineered to trigger headaches in anyone with a pulse.
It was the week of final exams—the crucial step toward high school. For his classmates, these tests represented their chances at becoming heroes or engineers. But for Kaito, they were merely the first barrier in his ten-year effort to blend into the background.
Kaito sat upright at his desk, eyes fixated on the ticking clock. He had forty-five minutes to tackle a math exam he could have breezed through in three if he allowed his "Upgraded" brain to work its magic. But speed felt like an outlier; true brilliance shone under a spotlight.
"Target Score: 68%," Kaito thought, his pen hovering over a quadratic equation. "Just enough to pass without dragging my grandma in for a meeting but low enough that no scouting recruiters would even glance at my file. I'm just a middle-of-the-road predator in this jungle of mediocrity."
But reality had different ideas. As Kaito gripped the cheap ballpoint pen, he felt that all-too-familiar, unwelcome hum in his palm.
'Oh no,' he thought, his heart racing. 'Not now. Inner peace. Inner peace'
It was futile.
The "Trust Value" from the outside world intruded, creeping in like an unwelcome visitor.
[A/n: There will be timeskip, so you can expect him to be able to fully control his powers. What he needs is time. He just became a viral sensation once. That's not enough. Public belief is ever-changing]
Somewhere out there, a new "Hero X" fan club was likely springing up.
Each time a stranger felt admiration for "Hero X," Kaito's body would receive an unwanted upgrade.
His fingers weren't just clutching the pen anymore; they began to "Correct" it. That cheap blue plastic shimmered, transforming into a crystal-like material far too robust for something that cost only 100 yen.
To make matters worse, the paper beneath Kaito's hand started to ripple. To his eyes, the stack of exam sheets began to flatten. The desk's shadows disappeared, and the ink on the page glowed like something out of a high-end digital art piece.
He was inadvertently "Rendering" the exam into a two-dimensional sticker.
'Crap!' he panicked internally, forcing his hand to relax. 'If I turn this exam into a 2D asset, the teacher will definitely notice my desk is covered with unremovable wall decals!'
Kaito took a deep breath, envisioning a grainy, 144p video of a bland room.
He focused on feeling tired, the mild itch on his nose that he was too lazy to scratch, and the soul-crushing boredom of a Tuesday afternoon.
Gradually, the shimmer faded. The pen reverted to its flimsy plastic form, and the paper returned to its three-dimensional state.
Kaito scanned his surroundings anxiously. 'Had anyone seen that?'
To his left, a student was intensely scribbling with a pencil. To his right, a girl was chewing on her eraser. Thankfully, the back row seemed overlooked.
Lunchtime was an even bigger challenge. Kaito attempted to escape to the rooftop to enjoy his soggy rice ball, but the "Narrative" followed him like a shadow.
As Kaito pushed through the steel door, he stumbled upon a group of second-years huddled together, eyes glued to a smartphone.
"Look at how the light bends around him!" one boy whispered. "My brother says Hero X isn't even a human; he's some sentient Quirk that broke free from a lab."
"I heard he's a deity from an ancient scroll," a girl chimed in, wearing a small, handmade 'X' pin on her collar, the same emblem Kaito had noticed at the hardware store.
Kaito lowered his head, concentrating with extra effort on his meditation.
"Hey! You! Kaito-kun!"
He froze. Slowly, he turned around, donning his best confused expression. "Me? Uh… did I forget my shoes in the wrong locker again?"
It was the boy with the smartphone, thrusting the screen toward Kaito's face. It showed a still from a video—a blurry figure of a boy in a soot-covered uniform.
"You're a part-time worker at that hardware store near the fire, right? Arisaka? People say the 'Soot Hero' was wearing a uniform just like yours. Did you see him? Did you see Hero X?"
Before he knew it, the whole group surrounded him, and Kaito faced his worst nightmare: the "Hero X" Fan Club right here in his own school.
"I… uh…" Kaito fumbled, rubbing the back of his neck while allowing a bit of saliva to gather at the corner of his mouth for dramatic effect.
"I was in the basement, moving around bags of charcoal, and all I could see was a cloud of dust. When I heard the 'Snap,' I thought it was just a transformer blowing up. I spent the entire fire under a heavy tarp, coughing for three days straight."
The boy's expression shifted, and the gleam in his eyes faded, replaced by the kind of pity people usually reserve for the unfortunate ones, the "quirkless".
"Wow, you're lucky you're even alive being that clueless," he muttered. "See? I told you it he won't know it. Arisaka couldn't find his own shadow in broad daylight, let alone witness something miraculous."
"Right? He's just a retail drone," the girl chimed in. "Forget about him. Let's discuss those 'X-Symbol' sightings in Tokyo."
Kaito walked past them, his heart racing. It was working, his "Art of Passerby" was his best defense.
They had proof right in front of them, yet they couldn't connect the revered "God" they idolized with the nobody they looked down on.
After school, the 'Sacrifice' continued at the hardware store. Grandma Saki was at her little office, squinting at invoices.
"Kaito, is that you?" she called out. "You've got a letter from the vocational high school you were so set on."
Kaito grabbed the envelope, a sense of relief washing over him. Shizuoka Technical & Vocational High.
Their motto was "Training the Workforce of Tomorrow, Today." No Hero Course. No elite studies. Just three years of hands-on training in machinery repair and accounting.
"They accepted me, Grandma!" Kaito exclaimed, a genuine smile breaking his usual façade. "I start in April and will focus on 'Maintenance and Logistics.'"
Saki looked at him with a mix of pride and confusion. "You're such a smart boy, Kaito. You could have aimed for a much better school. Aizawa-san thought you had... potential."
"Potential costs a lot, Grandma," Kaito replied, kneeling beside her. "That kind of potential gets you attention. I just want a job where I can work behind the scenes, come home to your delicious mackerel, and enjoy my life. UA is for the dreamers. I just want to be the guy who keeps everything running."
'I can't afford to be a hero,' Kaito thought as he stepped into the warehouse. 'Heroes are reckless. Heroes attract attention.'
------
Kaito spent the next four hours lugging crates of plumbing fixtures. To his manager, Kimiko-san, he looked like he was struggling, his face flushed and breathing labored. In reality, he was holding back.
If Kaito pushed even a fraction of his actual strength, he could have flung a 200-kilogram crate through the roof. He had to fake weariness, putting on a show that left him more drained than actual hard work ever would.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, Kaito suddenly felt a sharp surge in the "Updates."
Kaito dropped a box of copper elbows and clapped his hands to his ears. It wasn't a sound; it was a conceptual roar thousands of voices whispering the same thing: 'X.'
He rushed to the window. Across the street, on a partially demolished wall, someone had spray-painted a giant white 'X.' A crowd had gathered—not to protest, but standing in silence, some of them praying.
The "Trust Bank" was overflowing, reaching a critical level.
Kaito's skin started to shimmer uncontrollably. His state of meditation was being torn apart by the collective belief out on the street. His skin began to transform into a flawless porcelain-like material, and his work vest started "Re-Rendering" into an immaculate white fabric.
"No... not here... not now..." he muttered, retreating into the darkest corner of the warehouse.
Kaito grabbed a heavy iron pipe, gripping it so tightly that the metal warped like clay. He concentrated on the rust, the weight, and the coldness of the iron, then slammed his forehead down against it.
CLANG.
The pipe bent into a 'U' shape. He felt nothing—the "Indestructible" upgrade had shielded him—but the impact helped him regain focus. The shimmer receded, and the white garment disappeared.
"Kaito? What was that noise?" Kimiko-san shouted.
"I... I tripped!" Kaito called back, a bit shaky. "Just dropped a pipe! I'm okay! Just clumsy!
Kaito stared at the mangled iron pipe, feeling a rush of anxiety. If Kimiko saw this, she'd definitely know it wasn't humanly possible to create such a mess.
"I'm really falling short," Kaito thought, his hands shaking. "I need to get a grip on this quirk and move past middle school. I have to vanish before the 'Update' becomes too overwhelming to cover up."
Kaito glanced at the scrap bin and then down at his own hands.
SNAP.
The twisted steel straightened back out.
But as Kaito made his way to the front of the store, something caught his eye: a small, white 'X' badge on the side of his cash register.
'I didn't know Kimiko-san is also a fan'
It hit him hard, the world wasn't just keeping an eye on Hero X; it was hunting for him. Calling for him.
Kaito Arisaka realized he would have to try everything to ensure he stayed hidden.
~~~~~
[Author's Note]
The pressure is mounting! Kaito is fighting a war on two fronts: his own "Auto-Updating" body and the growing cult of Hero X that is now literally at his doorstep. The "Sacrifice" isn't just about jobs; it's about the psychological toll of pretending to be a "normal" while your body wants to rewrite reality.