One year on.
Takeru sat, lost in thought. The voices of the other children playing nearby were drowned out by internal monologue.
This quirk isn't ordinary. At first I thought it was just a simple durability enhancer, but it's much more than that.
The variety of quirks were endless. The professional heroes that dominated the headlines were typically individuals with offensive and powerful quirks. The flame hero Endeavour was a textbook example.
Across the ocean, in America, another hero, All Might, was making waves for his sunny smile and tyrannical physical strength.
The majority of the world's population, likely more than 99.9%, could never be a professional hero like All Might or Endeavour. Their quirks lacked the raw firepower and versatility that was necessary to be an effective force in saving lives.
Before the emergence of quirks, the children who were considered to have been born with a silver-spoon were those who had arrived into families of immense wealth. The existence of a wealthy or powerful family member was enough to guarantee a lifetime of financial security and elevated social standing.
The emergence of quirks had changed the way society operated. Money was no longer everything. With the right quirk any child, regardless of their background, could secure themselves a lifetime of fame and wealth.
I hadn't considered it at first. I'd thought that being a teacher would be nice. But if this quirk continues to grow...
Takeru sighed. He tilted his head to look up at the sky. It was bright blue and cloudless. The shadows cast by the trees dampened the summer heat.
He looked intently at his hand. It was still small. The changes brought about by his quirk weren't visible on the surface. Or at least not yet.
He was five now. His head came up roughly to hip-level on the staff at the orphanage. The adults didn't understand what his quirk really was. At the last follow-up appointment for quirk assessment, the doctor had listed his quirk as a mixed mutant/transformation type that increased his durability.
It's more than that. It's not just making me tougher, it's improving me. It's gradual, but I can feel it, it's responding to whatever the world throws at me.
Over the course of a year, his quirk had worked quietly in the background. The changes didn't happen overnight. Instead, they progressed steadily over weeks and months.
The darkness of nightime wasn't a problem for him anymore. With a little moonlight, he could see clearly as if it were still daytime. At first, he'd only been able to hold his breath for a minute or two underwater, now that could stretch out to nearly half an hour.
Takeru's body was still small. His muscles and bones were still developing, but the impact of his quirk on his physical strength was already considerable. He'd won arm-wrestling matches against girls and boys twice his age.
All Might could lift buildings and change the weather with a punch. Takeru's current strength was a far cry from these superhuman feats. He wasn't sure what the limits of his quirk were, but if things continued to progress, then maybe, one day, he might be able to perform the same incredible feats as All Might.
He wasn't arrogant or conceited. He didn't need to be Japan's number one hero. Even if his strength peaked at just a tenth, or twentieth of All Might's power, he would be satisfied.
Do I want to be a hero?
The question had been playing on his mind for months.
The web-slinging hero from the Marvel TV and comic universe lived his life according to the mantra; with great power comes great responsibility. Takeru didn't consider his origin story to be nearly as dramatic as Spiderman's, but some part of him resonated with the saying.
He wasn't an astetic monk who could forego wordly affairs. The promise of the wealth and power that came with being a proffesional hero also held a significant appeal.
Takeru shook his head. The action cleared some of the messy thoughts from his mind.
It's too early to be thinking about all of that. Right now I'm just a strong five year old who can see in the dark and hold his breath. I need to take this one day at a time.
"Children, it's visiting time!" The cheerful voice of a staff member echoed in the forest.
Takeru smiled to himself. He hopped down off the tree stump he'd been sitting on and dusted himself off. He straightened the collar of his shirt and smoothed out the wrinkles in his trousers. It was important to look presenteable.
The children filed in noisily into the main hall. The floor was covered in a colourful variety of rugs. Takeru took a seat. The hall was filled with dozens of other children. The youngest were only four, the older ones were approaching sixteen. The older children's expressions ranged from excitement to impatience.
The noisiness of the hall gradually settled down. The children were all present and accounted for. Nami, one of the caretakers, looked out across the rows of children and smiled kindly. The dozens of eyes on her didn't affect her.
"We have a special guest today children! Please welcome, all the way from Tokyo, the professional hero, Petal Rush!"
The two words, professional hero, were like a spell cast upon the children. Every pair of eyes in the room snapped to alert attention. The expressions of boredom vanished from the faces of the older teenagers.
"Young heroes, it is an honour to meet you all! My name is Petal Rush!"
The hero was dressed in a green and brown costume. The colours were muted, but it didn't make the hero any less dazzling in the children's eyes.
Petal Rush was a young man. The upper half of his face was covered by a wooden mask, decorated with vines. Although he'd been a professional hero for nearly three years, the intensity of the gazes staring at him still made him slightly nervous.
Petal Rush smiled brightly. The action brought about a familiar sense of confidence.
"I came today to meet the next generation of heroes! Being a hero isn't just about saving people! It's about getting out of bed and choosing to smile! Can all of you show me a hero's smile?" Petal Rush's voice was loud and sunny.
The children, particularly the younger ones, acted as if they'd been injected with red bull. They smiled so widely and determinedly that they looked far more frightening than reassuring.
The young hero, Petal Rush, smiled back, "Young heroes, your smiles give me the strength to carry on! Evil is nothing in the face of a smile!"
Petal Rush brought a finger to his lips, as if he was carefully considering what to do. Then, he grinned even wider, "In return for your brilliant smiles, allow me to give you all a gift!"
The hero stretched out both of his arms. The flower garlands on both of his wrists started to wriggle.
"Petal burst!"
From the hero's palms, twin rivers of multicoloured petals burst forwards. The sweet smell of flowers immediately filled the room. The children watched in slack-jawed awe as the petals danced through the air and drifted down on top of their heads.
After the developing brains of the younger children had finished short-circuiting from sheer delight, the hall erupted into excited screams.
Takeru didn't shout or jump to his feet like the other children, but the smile on his face was geniune. In less than a minute, the hero Petal Rush had given the orphanage children a memory that would last them a lifetime. The petals falling through the air would be talked about on the playground for months to come.
The definition of a hero had never been clear-cut. Throughout history, heroes had come in countless different forms. There were heroes who liberated, heroes who protected and heroes who sacrificed themselves for others.
For the children in the of the orphanage, the floral hero Petal Rush was currently more important than any hero they'd seen on television.
Nami smiled. She held a stack of paper in her hand, "Would you all like the lovely hero Petal Rush to sign something for you?"
The line formed within seconds. The presence of a hero like Petal Rush prevented any pushing or shoving. One by one the children accepted a piece of paper with trembling hands and presented it to Petal Rush.
The floral hero smiled and asked each of the children what they would like him to sign.
The signatures weren't worth much. They were coming from a small hero only known locally. But the younger children held the the piece of paper as if it were their most precious possession.
Takeru's turn came. The older children had all tacitly waited, allowing the younger children to take up the earlier positions in the queue.
"What would you like me to sign young man?" Petal Rush asked. His teeth were all even and perfectly white. The cameras that constantly followed heroes around demanded a certain kind of beauty.
Takeru looked steadily at the floral hero. He was silent for a moment.
"Why do you want to be a hero?"
The question wasn't what Petal Rush had expected to hear from such a small child. The hero blinked, seeming somewhat stunned.
Nami placed her hand on Takeru's shoulder. She smiled and said warmly, "Takeru's always had big questions."
Petal Rush's loss of composure didn't last for more than a second. The broad smile returned to his face. The hero nodded understandingly and looked at the small child in front of him.
The question brought up a complex tangle of thoughts for the floral hero. He couldn't help but think back to his first day as a professional hero. And before that the years he'd spent dreaming of getting his licence.
Petal Rush made a hmm-ing thoughtful noise. Then, he wrote on Takeru's paper in his big and bold handwriting.
Follow your heart Takeru. The paper read.
Petal Rush handed the piece of paper to the young boy. His voice was clear and determined, "When I was your age, my only dream was to become a hero. My parents always taught me to follow my dreams."
Takeru accepted the paper. He didn't crush it against his chest like the other children, but he held it carefully in a way that clearly showed it was valuable to him.
"Thank you." Takeru said.
The next child stepped up to have their paper signed by Petal Rush. Nami watched Takeru's small figure walk back over to his rug and sit down. The look in his eyes didn't match his small frame.
Nami wondered how a child so young could have thoughts so big.
The autograph signing continued. The older children, who now had their own phones, requested photos with Petal Rush. The hero happily obliged.
The floral hero stayed for several hours. The children fought frantically to play with him and show off what their quirks could do.
Dinner time was even noisier than usual, the older children's initial stiff politeness around the Petal Rush hero had faded. Their eyes still overflowed with admiration and they never once behaved rudely, but their questions began to investigate aspects of the hero's personal life. The older boys listened and nodded like they had discovered a great and wise sage in the mountains when the floral hero started to discuss where to go on a first date.
The whole orphanage gathered to wave goodbye to the floral hero when a car arrived in the evening to take him away.
Takeru was amongst the rows of children. His hand moved mechanically waving goodbye, but the absent look in his eyes said that his mind was far away.
He doesn't want to be a hero to save the world, or bring down villains. He's just following a dream in his heart.
The age of five was incredibly young to start exploring what made heroism noble. Even when the blankets were wrapped around him later that night, Takeru's mind was still spinning rapidly.
The boards of the bunk bead above his head creaked in the nightime stillness. The loudness of his own thoughts drowned out the sound of the other children breathing in the shared room.