'MIDAS!!! WAKE UP! YOU GOTTA GO TO SCHOOL!!'
I surfaced from sleep like breaking through ice, my mother's voice cutting through the golden cocoon I'd built around my bed. Fourteen years of this voice, fourteen years of learning which tones meant business.
'I'm up, I'm up!' I shook the blanket off—pure gold, woven thin as silk, warm from my body heat—and found my feet on the golden floor before my eyes fully opened.
The bathroom mirror showed me someone I still wasn't used to. Four years in Japan, four years of gravity training and underground fights and pushing a body that refused to find its limits. The result stared back: wild charcoal hair that fell over my eyes no matter how I cut it, sharp planes to my face that hadn't existed at ten, hollow cheeks and a jawline that could cut glass. Muscles coiled under pale skin—not bulky, but dense, corded, the kind of build that came from functional strength rather than aesthetics. A scar ran across my left collarbone, pale and thin. Another scar cut through my right eyebrow. My left knee ached as I shifted weight—the old fracture that had never fully healed.
And the eyes—molten gold, catching light wrong, marking me as other even before anyone saw what I could do.
'Damn… guess the training gave me more than just looks.' The grin felt natural now, the confidence earned rather than performed.
I changed fast—school uniform, black and formal, the standard that meant nothing and cost nothing to someone who'd never had to worry about cost. Downstairs, my mother waited with breakfast and judgment.
'You need to hurry before you're late.'
'Damn, Mom… no "good morning" or anything?' I sat down, started on the golden waffles, the eggs that had been transmuted before cooking to add nutritional density only my body needed.
'If you stopped staying up all night messing with your Quirk, I wouldn't have to scream your name every morning.'
I finished eating, threw my bag over my shoulder. 'Thanks, Mom. I'm heading out.'
'YOU SON OF A—'
*Click.* The door sealed behind me, cutting off the rest. I was already moving, already gone, the sound of her sigh following through the wood. 'What am I going to do with him…'
---
Outside, I reached into my pocket, found the gold coins I kept there—emergency currency, emergency material, always ready. I threw one into the air, caught it as it expanded, reshaped, became a motorcycle frame, wheels, engine constructed from pure precious metal, hardened to steel's resilience through compression and molecular restructuring. A trick that had taken six months of failed attempts and three cracked ribs to perfect.
I hopped on, felt the connection between myself and the machine, and shot upward. Six hundred miles per hour, the wind screaming past barriers I'd learned to generate, to shape, to harden into aerodynamic shells. The first time I'd tried that speed, the wind had torn my shirt off and left me bleeding from a thousand tiny cuts. Now it was routine.
'I've really come a long way.'
The thought wasn't pride so much as inventory. By twelve, I'd been proficient in boxing and Muay Thai—my mother's compromise, her condition for allowing the training she'd eventually discovered. But proficiency wasn't enough. Skill without experience was just choreography.
So I found experience. Underground fight clubs across Japan, the kind that didn't check IDs, didn't ask questions, didn't stop when someone bled. I fought Quirked opponents, mutation-types, people who could do things that shouldn't be possible. I never used my Quirk in those matches. Just technique, just the abnormal strength and durability I'd been born with, just the adaptability that let me learn an opponent's rhythm in seconds and break it in minutes.
They called me Ashura. The name stuck, became legend in circles that didn't ask for real names.
Then there was the gravity chamber. Four years of Tony's engineering, progressively increasing load. My Quirk output depended on physical capacity—more strength meant more gold, more control, more complexity. So I pushed both in parallel. The sessions still left me shaking, nosebleeds staining the mats. My left knee ached constantly now. A permanent cost.
Some techniques I'd developed borrowed from fiction—not named, just instinct. A sphere of transmuting air that turned everything inside to gold over ten seconds. A rain of golden blades, launched telekinetically. A mist that flash-hardened on contact, encasing enemies. My range was back to a hundred feet on good days, but the drain was massive. Three major techniques and I'd be crawling.
I wasn't original. I was effective. And I wasn't here to struggle. I was here to be the strongest.
---
School arrived before I'd finished thinking. Autopilot had carried me here, the same way it carried me through every day—girls fawning, guys glaring, teachers droning about equations I'd solved years ago.
'He's so hot!' 'Midas, marry me!' 'Have my children!'
I ignored all of it, found my desk, put my head down. Mental checkout. Complete. The education system had nothing for me, hadn't for years. I was here because my mother insisted, because U.A. required academic records, because the performance of normalcy had value even when the reality was anything but.
The bell rang eventually. I got up, went out the window—third floor, no hesitation—dropped into open air. Below, the gold coins in my pocket responded to my will, became a motorcycle beneath me, caught my weight, carried me upward at a more reasonable speed.
I was thinking about training schedules, about the gravity chamber's next increment, about whether Tony's new repulsor designs could be adapted for my use when—
'Let go of me!! Someone help!!'
The voice cut through my calculations like a blade. My head snapped down, eyes finding the source automatically.
A girl my age, uniform torn, being dragged toward a black van. Three men surrounded her, large, mutation-types—one with rhino features, thick skin and horn protrusion; another with canine characteristics, claws extended; the third watching, directing, some kind of tactical Quirk that let him coordinate.
I didn't hesitate. Didn't calculate odds or assess legality. I jumped.
The fall was forty feet. I landed in a crouch, gold spreading from my feet in a wave that consumed the street, the van, the surrounding buildings—everything except the people. The three kidnappers froze, their eyes going wide with greed at the sudden wealth surrounding them, the distraction of pure gold overwhelming their tactical discipline.
That hesitation cost them everything.
I projected a sphere of transmuting air around us—ten seconds to full conversion. The rhino-man broke free at seven, swiped at me. His claw caught my shoulder, drew blood. The canine-man dissolved the gold around his legs at nine seconds—his Quirk, acid saliva, ate through my metal. The third man, the tactician, had already retreated outside the sphere's range.
I didn't have ten seconds. I adapted. Fifty golden swords materialized above me, launched at the two remaining attackers. Not to kill—to pin. The rhino-man took three in the shoulders, roared, collapsed. The canine-man dodged four, took two in the legs, fell.
I reverted everything. The gold dissolved back into original materials—concrete, asphalt, steel—leaving three unconscious bodies and one terrified girl.
---
I walked toward her, already cataloging injuries, and stopped.
She was shaking. Not from cold—from shock. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps. Her eyes were unfocused, fixed on something a thousand yards away. I'd seen this before. Underground fighters, after a bad knockout. The brain trying to reboot.
'Hey.' I crouched to her eye level, kept my voice low. 'You're safe. They're down. Can you hear me?'
She blinked. Focused on my face. Her gaze caught on my eyes—the gold—and something flickered. Not fear. Recognition.
'You… you saved me.' Her voice was thin.
'Yeah. What's your name?'
'Momo. Momo Yaoyorozu.' She tried to stand, stumbled. I caught her arm, steadied her. She flinched at the contact—not from me, from the aftermath of the grab. Her wrist was bruised where they'd held her.
'I'm Midas. Can you walk?'
She nodded, took a step, nearly fell again. I didn't let go. 'Okay. Slow.'
We moved to the side of the street. I pulled a gold coin from my pocket, let it expand into a bench—simple, stable. She sat, pressed her hands together to stop their trembling. Blood still dripped from her nose. I handed her a handkerchief.
'They didn't hurt you badly. Just grabbed you. The nose is from stress—blood pressure spike.' I'd learned that from Tony's medical textbooks. 'You'll be fine in a few minutes.'
She pressed the cloth to her face, took a shaky breath. 'How do you know all that?'
'Experience.'
She looked at me then—really looked. At the scars on my collarbone and eyebrow. At the gold in my eyes. At the way I held myself, ready to move, ready to fight again.
'You're not normal,' she said.
'No,' I agreed. 'I'm not.'
---
We sat in silence for a long moment. The street was empty—my transmutation had scared off traffic, and the police hadn't arrived yet. I could hear sirens in the distance.
'Why did you save me?' she asked. 'You don't know me.'
I considered the question. The honest answer—'because I recognized you from an anime in another life'—was impossible. So I gave a different truth.
'Because I could. And because no one else was going to.'
She stared at me. Something in her expression shifted—not gratitude, not quite. Something more complicated. 'That's… not a normal reason.'
'I'm not a normal person.'
She almost smiled. Almost. 'I noticed.'
The sirens grew closer. I stood, offered her my hand. 'Can you stand on your own now?'
She tested her weight, nodded. 'I think so.' She didn't let go of my hand immediately. When she did, her fingers lingered.
'Do you go to school around here?' she asked.
'Aldera Junior High. You?'
'Some private academy. My parents…' She trailed off, looked at the unconscious kidnappers. 'They'll want to thank you. Properly.'
'I don't need thanks.'
'That's not how my family works.'
I shrugged. 'Then they can buy me dinner sometime.' It was a joke, but her cheeks colored slightly.
The police arrived. Red and blue lights, shouted questions, the machinery of aftermath. I gave a statement—brief, careful, leaving out the underground fighting and the Hydra connections. Momo gave hers separately, her voice steadier now, the aristocratic training kicking in.
Before we parted, she held out her phone. 'Can I… have your number? In case they have follow-up questions.'
I took it, entered my contact. 'Sure.'
She looked at the screen, then at me. 'Midas. That's an unusual name.'
'My mother has a sense of irony. Everything she touches becomes gold. And apparently, so do I.'
She didn't laugh. But she smiled—small, genuine, the first real expression I'd seen from her that wasn't fear or shock.
'I'll call you,' she said.
'Do that.'
I turned, turned a coin into a motorcycle, and rose into the sky. When I looked back, she was still standing there, watching me go.
---
That night, my phone buzzed. Unknown number. 'Nice rescue. The Yaoyorozu family is influential. We'll be watching.'
I deleted the message. Hydra hadn't attacked in over a year. But they were always there, always cataloging, always reminding me that every move I made was noted.
Cybele didn't knock. She just opened my door and stood there, arms crossed. 'You're late. You're bleeding.' She pointed at my shoulder, where the rhino-man's claw had cut me. I'd forgotten to heal it.
'It's nothing.'
'It's never nothing with you.' She stepped closer, pulled my shirt collar aside, looked at the wound. 'This needs stitches.'
'I can heal it.'
'Then heal it.' Her voice was hard. 'And then come downstairs. We need to talk about the underground fights. All of them.'
I opened my mouth to argue. She raised a hand. 'Not tonight. Tonight, we eat dinner. Tomorrow, we talk.' She paused at the door. 'I'm not going to lose you, Midas. Not to Hydra. Not to your own stubbornness. And definitely not to some back-alley bloodsport.'
She left. I healed the wound—slowly, the gold in my blood knitting the skin together. The scar would join the others.
Eleven months until U.A. The gravity chamber waited. The underground fights waited. Hydra waited. And now, my mother's ultimatum waited.
I laid back on my golden bed, stared at the ceiling. The knot of light behind my sternum pulsed—weaker than before, but steady. I'd lost something in the gravity chamber. Something I'd never get back.
'Was it worth it?' I asked the empty room.
No answer came. But the gold in my veins pulsed in reply—steady, controlled, mine.
Fourteen years old. The entrance exam was eleven months away. I wasn't ready. But I was closer than I'd ever been.
'Tomorrow,' I whispered. 'Tomorrow, I train harder.'
The lights of Musutafu flickered through my window, indifferent and eternal. Somewhere out there, Hydra watched. Somewhere out there, U.A. waited. And somewhere inside me, the boy who had once laughed while being chased through a Manhattan apartment was still fighting to be heard.
I closed my eyes. The gold held me. The night held me. And for a few hours, before the next session, before the next fight, before the next step toward being the strongest—I rested.
Tomorrow would come soon enough.
…
And also now Midas's appearance is a exact replica of Ohma Tokita from Kengan Ashura but his irises is the same molten gold color.
[Image here]
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