BNHA: I am Reiji Toga

The constant beeping of the heart monitor accompanied the slight darkness of the room.

Reiji opened his eyes slowly, holding his gaze on the white ceiling, which was muffled by the lack of light in the room. The faint sound of the city from the window to his side was the only thing that accompanied Reiji as the beeping persisted.

'This is...' Still distorted by the situation, his mind flashed back to a familiar scene. In his other life, as Ethan... Waking up like this wasn't uncommon back then, even in worse conditions.

Still, his heart began to race. The thought that he was back in his old body... his old life, flooded him heavily.

The beeping grew sharper. Faster.

Beep... beep... beepbeep...

He forced his arms up, but a wave of pain shot through him from his shoulder to his stomach. Every muscle fiber protested with burning pain. His body didn't respond.

But Reiji didn't give up, trying his best to remove the wires connected to his left arm, but he barely managed to flex his fingers before a pang shot up his side and drew a gasp from him.

"Gh..." His throat burned. His voice wasn't right. Not loud. Not human.

The beeping increased again.

Beep. Beep. Beepbeepbeep.

The machine began to blink. A silent alarm.

'No... not again. Not again. I'm not Ethan. I'm not that... experiment.'

The pressure on his chest didn't come from the bandages, but from a visceral panic that blocked his air. He wanted to scream, but only exhaled a dry moan. He thrashed around in the bed as little as he could, until he felt the electrodes tightening on his skin, as if held by invisible nails.

His eyes trembled, unable to focus properly. The city lights seemed to distort through the window, as if it were all a bad dream that was all too real.

Then, just as the panic reached its peak, the door opened.

"Calm down, kid, you're in the hospital..." A doctor's calm voice brought his whole soul back to himself. Something about that tired, yet relaxed tone brought him back to the real world. It wasn't words of false concern and cold stares; it was quite different.

"Monitor, rhythm stable. Saturation within parameters. Pulse is still irregular, but at least he's not collapsing," the doctor murmured to the second doctor accompanying him, without taking his eyes off Reiji.

The other, younger doctor nodded as he prepared a dose of sedative as a precaution.

"We don't need to sedate him yet. Just observe him," the first doctor ordered, then returned his attention to the patient. "Reiji... can you hear me?"

Reiji nodded very slightly, his lips parted.

"You're in a special recovery area. You were in a coma for seven days. Your body went into a critical state, but you managed to stabilize yourself... Although you're still not completely well."

Reiji's muscles trembled. He still didn't speak. He still didn't trust.

"We had to intervene to contain what happened to your blood. Your Quirk... responded in a way no one expected."

Then the door opened again.

"Are you conscious enough?" a recognizable voice asked. Tired, firm.

Aizawa entered the room, with his usual exhausted expression, but his gaze sharper than ever. And beside him, walking with soft steps, was Nezu, holding a tablet between his front paws.

"Then it's time we talked," the little director added. "There are things you need to know... and consequences you can no longer avoid."

Aizawa stopped at the foot of the bed, arms crossed. His presence was as powerful as ever, even amid the hospital silence.

Nezu, on the other hand, walked calmly to a small chair next to the monitor. He climbed onto it as if he were in his office, resting the tablet on his furry knees.

"What a relief to see you awake, Reiji," he said cordially. "Although, strictly speaking, your awakening is... more complex than we expected."

The doctor remained silent, leaving room for what was to come. The younger doctor adjusted the sensors attached to the patient's chest, without intervening.

Reiji swallowed, barely. His throat was still dry.

"What... happened?" he managed to say, hoarsely.

Aizawa exchanged a quick glance with the doctor before answering.

Aizawa and the doctor exchanged a brief but tense look. It was Nezu who spoke first.

"Before I give you a complete answer... we need to know something."

He got out of the chair and walked over to the side of the bed, where Reiji could see him clearly.

"Do you remember your full name?" he asked, as if asking the most common question in the world.

Reiji frowned, confused.

"Reiji... Toga."

Aizawa watched him closely. He didn't blink.

"Age?"

"Fifteen."

"What's the last thing you remember?"

Reiji looked down for a second, sifting through fragments of sensations, incomplete images, the ringing in his ears, his boiling blood.

"I remember... The invasion of the U.S.J. I was facing their leader, Shigaraki. Until... One of the Nomu..." His eyes widened at the memory, touching his left side even with the pain throughout his body. He was greatly relieved to feel that he still had him.

"Don't you remember anything else?" Nezu tried to help.

"Then... I remember Uraraka and Todoroki saving me, finally, for some reason, the Nomu crashed into me and... I... I don't know how, but I managed to... bite its neck. Tear something off. With my teeth," he explained, small flashbacks coming to his mind, though everyone agreed he was receiving a one-sided beating.

The older doctor wrote something on his chart. Nezu just nodded, as if everything fit together.

"That was enough. More than enough," Aizawa said quietly.

Reiji looked at them, feeling the silence fall like a stone.

"What... happened to me?"

Nezu turned back to the tablet and, with a gesture, projected the image again: the three-dimensional model of Reiji's body, crisscrossed by irregular, dark cellular lines that pulsed as if they had a life of their own.

Aizawa responded.

"You became something new, Reiji. When you bit that Nomu, you absorbed its tissue without knowing it. And your body didn't reject it. It integrated it, absorbing its DNA and gaining part of its abilities."

"How... is that possible?" he asked, a knot forming in his stomach.

It was Nezu who answered, with that dangerous calm he used when he was about to say something undeniable.

"On the brink of death, your system searched for a solution… and found it in the enemy's blood."

The older doctor added with surgical coldness:

"In other words, your body treated the Nomu's tissue as a catalyst. As if it were a compatible extension. It copied it, replicated it… and made it yours."

"It wasn't a conscious decision," Aizawa added. "It was pure survival. But the result is the same: your genetics are no longer fully human."

Reiji felt a pressure in his chest, but this time it wasn't physical.

Once again, his life as Ethan crept up on him, enveloping his mind like a damp shadow. No matter that he was in another world and a new life, he seemed doomed to be an anomaly.

A foreign body in any world.

A mistake in human form.

"The reason why your blood is so compatible with those creatures has yet to be discovered," the doctor began now, breaking the silence in a firm, though not harsh, voice. "But... we can't say everything is bad."

Reiji slowly turned his head toward him, reflexively suspicious.

"Your body is mutating, yes," the doctor continued. "But maybe not in the way you think."

He activated a new image on the floating screen. It was comparative biological graphs: regeneration speed, muscle response, bone density.

"Your regeneration increased several folds, with no visible side effects so far. The recovery speed exceeds the previous range by 240%. Your body isn't just rebuilding... it's optimizing."

"That doesn't make me feel any better," Reiji replied quietly.

The doctor ignored the comment, focused on the presentation.

"In addition, we noticed an acceleration in your neuromuscular system. That is: your body is faster. Your reflexes improved, and while the improvement is subtle, the patterns match the Quirk the Nomu used to move."

"Are you saying... I absorbed its Quirk?" Reiji asked, his voice muffled.

"Not entirely," Aizawa chimed in from the corner. "What your Quirk did was replicate the other's advantages. You didn't copy it. But there are functional fragments... As if your body had interpreted the threat as a useful resource."

Nezu closed the tablet.

"Which represents both an opportunity and a risk."

Reiji remained silent, his gaze fixed on the screen.

He was no longer fully human. And he probably never would be again.

Aizawa gave him one last look before turning toward the door.

"You will receive constant monitoring. Your condition will be assessed every day. You will not be allowed to use your Quirk or train. Not until you are fully recovered," he said in a neutral, unadorned voice.

He stopped before crossing the threshold, and without turning around, added:

"I'm sure you don't remember, but you ended up fighting at the expense of your physical condition. You were reduced to almost nothing, abusing your healing to the limit. Your bones... are splintered in multiple places, and your muscles were practically massacred from within. It's a miracle you're still alive."

Reiji's eyes narrowed at that. He didn't really remember, but the pain was too real to doubt his words.

Every breath scraped against the inside of his chest. Every attempt to move his fingers was accompanied by a dry, deep pang. 

"We'll inform your family of your current condition," the doctor intervened, colder than the others. "They'll be able to visit you starting tomorrow. Today... you need complete rest."

Nezu got down from the chair with a small jump and walked to the edge of the bed. He looked at him in silence for a moment that felt longer than it should have.

"Rest, Reiji," he finally said.

Reiji, with an effort, bowed his head slightly.

"Thank you..." he murmured.

Aizawa simply nodded from the doorway.

The two doctors gathered their things and disconnected some monitors that were no longer needed. The truth was, several had only one purpose: to notify him when he would wake up.

But in the end, Reiji's mutated regeneration had been more effective than any medical technology. His body, even broken, had found a way to survive without asking permission.

One by one, they left in silence. There were no final words. Just glances, some more human than others.

The automatic door closed with a soft click.

Reiji let out a long sigh. Things had changed so much in such a short time, and he himself had benefited from it, while also putting himself at greater risk. Being naturally compatible with the Nomu's blood made him highly susceptible as a laboratory tool...

After all, if his Quirk could adapt other people's Quirks naturally, what would stop someone from wanting to replicate the process? Or force it?

For a moment, he felt the cold of a metal gurney beneath his back. Not the one in this hospital.

But the other one.

The one from his previous life.

Ethan's.

'I'm not Ethan. I'm not. I'm not...'

He repeated those words to himself over and over again. As if they were a spell. A prayer to not unravel.

But his body, still bandaged, still strange, didn't respond with certainty.

And deep in his chest, an idea pierced like a silent thorn:

Maybe it wasn't. But he was getting closer to performing another experiment for someone.

===

Hi everyone, sorry for not posting an episode yesterday, but I got sick and slept most of the day. I'm feeling a little better today, but I won't be able to keep up with the chapters due to the pain. Anyway, when I recover and get back to writing, I'll post the pending episodes.

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