Being born was a procedural nightmare.
There was no white light. Just the violent transition from non-existence to a cold, sterile room
in Minato General Hospital. The air stung. The lights were an assault. And the first thing that
happened to Hiromi Higuruma in this new life was a doctor slapping him on the ass.
Hiromi tried to file a verbal objection regarding the assault, but his vocal cords were
undeveloped. The intricate legal argument he formed in his mind came out as a
high-pitched, pathetic wail.
Objection overruled, he thought, as a nurse wrapped him in a blanket. I have no agency. I
am a dependent.
The first year was a lesson in humiliation. His mind was sharp, retaining the entirety of the
Japanese Penal Code and the bitter memories of his previous life, but his body was useless.
He had to learn to walk again. He had to eat mashed carrots. He had to endure the cooing of
relatives who looked at his blank, analytical stare and called him an "old soul."
They had no idea.
He was born into wealth. That much was obvious from the thread count of the sheets and
the size of the estate in Minato. His new father, Daichi Higuruma, was a lawyer.
At first, Hiromi felt a spark of hope. Perhaps he had been born into a family that respected
the law.
That hope died when Hiromi was eighteen months old.
He was sitting on the floor of his father's home office, stacking wooden blocks with
mechanical precision, while Daichi took a call on a secure line.
"I understand the building collapsed, yes," Daichi said, sipping a glass of expensive scotch.
He sounded bored. "But if we admit the Hero used excessive force, the insurance won't pay
out. We need to frame it as structural failure. Blame the architect. The Hero was just...
mitigating the disaster."
Hiromi paused, a red block hovering in his hand.
"Yes," Daichi continued. "The Hero Public Safety Commission will cover the media fallout.
My job is to ensure the lawsuits don't stick. The victims? Offer them a settlement. Ten
percent of what they're asking. If they refuse, bury them in paperwork until they starve."
Hiromi set the block down.
It was the same. Different world, same rot. The law here wasn't a shield; it was a janitorial
service for the powerful.
By the time he was three, Hiromi had figured out the geography of this new hell. He watched
the news. He saw people flying, shooting fire, and lifting buses. They called them "Quirks."
Society had reorganized itself around these biological anomalies. They had "Heroes",
celebrities with badges who acted as police, judge, and jury. And they had "Villains", a
catch-all term for anyone who used power without a license.
It was a legal gray area that terrified him. Where was the due process? Where was the
oversight?
He got his answer during a gala hosted at the Higuruma estate. Hiromi, dressed in a tiny
tuxedo that made him feel ridiculous, stood silently by the hors d'oeuvres table, listening.
A man with a sharp jawline and an expensive pin on his lapel was speaking to Daichi.
"The Yaoyorozu Group is grateful for your work on the patent dispute, Higuruma-san," the
man said. "My daughter, Momo, is showing promise. Creation Quirk. Very versatile. When
she enters U.A. High, we want to ensure her record is spotless."
"Of course," Daichi smiled, a shark showing teeth. "U.A. is the gold standard. We'll make
sure the path is clear."
Yaoyorozu, Hiromi thought. U.A. High.
The names triggered a memory from his old life. Not from a law book, but from a manga he'd
seen his paralegals reading in the breakroom. My Hero Academia.
He was in a comic book world. A world of black-and-white morality, merchandising deals,
and teenage soldiers.
He felt a headache building behind his eyes. He walked away from the party, heading for the
library. He climbed onto his father's desk chair, his small legs dangling, and pulled a heavy
volume off the shelf: The Superhuman Society Liability Act.
He began to read.
It was worse than he thought. The laws here were full of holes. "Good Samaritan" clauses
that granted Heroes near-total immunity. Vigilante statutes that criminalized self-defense if a
Quirk was used. It was a system designed to protect the status quo, not the truth.
He felt a familiar heat rising in his chest. It wasn't the biological buzz of a Quirk. He'd seen
kids in the park with their quirks, it looked like a physical exertion, a muscle flexing.
This felt different. It felt cold. It felt dark. It felt like the weight of the ledger he had lost in the
Sumida River.
He looked at his reflection in the dark window of the library. He was a child, but the eyes
staring back were old and tired.
The entity, the Bailiff, had said he would be given the tools to judge this world.
Hiromi closed the law book. He didn't need to breathe fire. He didn't need super strength. He
felt the Cursed Energy pooling in his gut, heavy and dense. It was responsive to his anger,
but more importantly, it was responsive to his logic.
Tomorrow was his fourth birthday. The age of diagnosis. The doctor would look for a toe
joint, run some tests, and tell Daichi what kind of "Hero" his son could be.
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Author's Note: I have rewritten and expanded this chapter to truly emphasize the "dual-nature" of Hiromi's new life. We're moving away from the typical "I'm a baby" tropes and into the psychological preparation of a man who sees the legal infrastructure of the MHA world as his primary enemy. The details about his father's corruption and the Yaoyorozu connection set the stage for Hiromi to become a true wild card in the upcoming U.A. years. If you're enjoying this deep dive into his childhood and the awakening of his Cursed Energy, please leave a comment or support!