Anim rounded the corner to find his sister sitting on a bench outside the community center, uniform torn and dirt-streaked, grinning like she'd just won the lottery.
"There you are." He dropped beside her, white-pink hair still damp with sweat from cutting his gym session short. Kirishima sat on her other side, looking equally battered. "Mom's been calling everyone in a fifty-kilometer radius."
"We're fine!" Mina bounced slightly, unable to contain her excitement. "Better than fine. Anim, you should have seen this guy—massive, like a walking mountain—and he was just asking for directions, but everyone was scared and screaming, and—"
"Slow down." Anim caught her wrist, thumb finding her pulse point. Elevated but steady. No tremor in her hands. "You're not hurt?"
"Just a scratch." She touched the small cut on her cheek. "Kirishima was incredible though. Really stepped up."
Kirishima's face went red. "Your sister's the one who made the difference. Guy looked ready to level the whole street until she smiled at him."
Anim studied Kirishima's expression—no hero worship, just genuine respect. Three months of spotting each other at the gym had taught him to read the redhead's tells. This wasn't exaggeration.
"So instead of running," Anim said, "you two decided to have a chat with Gigantomachia."
"You know who he was?" Mina's eyes widened.
"Lucky guess." He'd recognized the description from fragments of memory, pieces of a life he couldn't quite touch. A name long forgotten but he remembered a name, a nickname rather, called EyeOfSauron. But nonetheless he needed to get home fast.
"Come on. Mom's probably stress-cooking enough food to feed half the prefecture by now."
They walked home through familiar streets, Mina's voice carrying as she recounted every detail. Her words painted the scene—a confused giant, genuine sadness beneath the intimidating exterior, the moment when fear transformed into understanding. Anim listened, cataloguing the way her voice changed when she talked about making a real difference.
"This is it, isn't it?" she said as they reached their front gate. "What we've been training for."
"Getting yourself killed?"
"Being heroes." She punched his shoulder. "Today wasn't about Quirks or strength. It was about seeing someone who needed help."
Anim looked at his sister—really looked. Dirt in her hair, uniform hanging in tatters, but something bright and unshakeable in her eyes. She'd found her moment and hadn't hesitated.
"Yeah," he said. "Maybe it was."
Later, after their parents' predictable cycle of panic and pride, Anim stood before his bedroom mirror. The reflection stared back—soft features, large dark eyes, that distinctive white-pink coloring that marked him as different even in a world of Quirks. His appearance had been bothering him for months now, nagging at the edges of consciousness.
He looked like someone. Someone from dreams that felt more like memories.
The fragments came in flashes—late nights absorbed in manga, animated battles playing on a small screen, the obsessive devotion of a previous life spent consuming stories. Among all those characters, one stood out with uncomfortable clarity: a pink being of impossible power and childlike simplicity.
Majin Buu.
The resemblance was undeniable. Not just the coloring, but the proportions, the way his body seemed to exist by different rules. Except for his pink white hair that replaced Majin's antenna. The tail that served no apparent purpose but felt natural as breathing.
He flexed his fingers experimentally. The skin stretched beyond normal limits before snapping back. His reflection showed the same face, but underneath lay something else—potential humming just below the surface, waiting.
"Anim! Dinner!"
"Coming!"
He turned from the mirror, but the image lingered. If his suspicions were right, if those half-remembered fragments meant what he thought they did, then everything was about to change. Mina had found her heroic moment today. His was still coming.
The thought should have been terrifying. Instead, he found himself grinning.
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AN: So... this novel was a request for my first reader who amused me and helped give me feedback on my novel, so gonna write it from time to time when I remember, no promises truly as well I told him I'd take longer (but just laid it down since if not I'll just forget tbh... may come back at least once a month to publish a few chapters).
[Leave here any plot directions wanted EyeOfSauron]