[1st POV]
(4 years old)
Three days after I regained some of my memories, things became normal again. My memories and powers would come back bit by bit as I age so all I had to do in the meantime was wait and grow up.
So at my age, my main priority was elementary school.
"Oi!! You are the one who butted in on my fight with Bakugo right?" I asked the broccoli head during the school break.
The other kids were busy playing among themselves. Bakugo briefly glanced at us but didn't do anything else. His cheek and nose still had bandages, and I didn't think he would approach me again until those came off.
"Y-Yes, Can I help you?" he asked meekly.
"What's your name?"
"Izuku Mi-mi-midoriya," he replied back with a stutter. He was awfully nervous, he looked like he didn't have good experience with kids like me.
Rough kids, baby alpha, bullies, whatever you want to call us. Before I regained my memory, Bakugo and I were cut from the same cloth and that was why we often clashed.
The only difference was that he was like that for no reason while I became like that to not get bullied by others. Bullies don't get bullied, simple logic my four-year-old mind could comprehend.
"Okay Mi-mi-midoriya. I came to say thank you," I said which seemed to surprise the little boy.
"...Huh!?"
"Yeah, although you were weak as shit, you still came to protect me while the other kids just watched. So respect to you for that, you got balls," I said.
He tilted his head, not recognizing half of the curse words I added in my sentence but the meaning still got through. His nervous face firmed into a glad smile.
I think that was the moment he imprinted on me like a newly hatched duckling. He followed me everywhere since that moment, even without my permission he was already my friend.
I was trying to distance myself from other kids since I regained some of my memories but Midoriya quickly became an exception to that. I mean how could someone hate him? He was simply so innocent and earnest.
I took him in as a kind of underling, a younger brother I never had. He would follow me around everywhere, even after school when kids played with their own friends.
He was kind of a loser since he was quirkless and all. So I was his only friend. That was also the reason why I never pushed him away.
The years rolled by pretty quickly and at the age of six, I regained a part of my memories that told me exactly who Midoriya was, or what he was going to be. Turns out I was friends with the main character of this world, neat.
The memories came to me at random so I had to put them together like pieces of a puzzle. If I didn't have the pieces, some memories just didn't make sense.
So the memory of me digging a hole in some park and burying a finger in a box didn't make sense until I learned that I hid twenty of my fingers all across Tokyo so that I could regain my prime powers easily.
From then on, my priority changed. The main objective was not just to grow up but to also collect all my fingers.
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(6 years old)
"Are you sure we should be doing this?" Midoriya asked timidly while he was on the lookout for anyone.
"Of course, it's not like we are doing anything illegal," I said as I continued digging on the ground marked by a tree.
I knew I buried one finger under this specific tree. The mark I made with dismantle was still visible even now.
"Then why am I on the lookout for people?" he asked, being the smartass he was. Any other six-year-old would just enjoy the adventurous vibe of doing something you shouldn't do, but Midorya was worrying.
"Because like I said, we are treasure hunting. We don't want anyone stealing our treasure after we find it," I said, the hole was about one foot deep now.
I didn't realize I dug that deep when I buried it. But after I turned into a child, I realized that it was buried way deeper than necessary.
"Please Kyouma, I already came to another city with you. My mom would kill me if she knew I boarded a train on my own. And if she found out I did something illegal despite that..."
I sighed in annoyance, "Why do you worry so much?"
"Because I saw the flipping sign okay!! It says not to destroy the property in the park including the grass and flower beds!" Midoriya burst out, tears already pooling in his eyes.
"If I go to jail, I will never be able to become a hero. No Hero Academia wants a student with criminal records," he added with a panicked touch.
I ignored his cry, I was annoyed but also a little smug. He was so worried and nervous but here he was, still an accomplice, still on the lookout. Say what you want but that was what I looked for in a friend.
Someone who stuck with you despite anything else.
"Found it," I said and I smiled,
I pulled out the small wooden box buried in the depths of the earth. It was neatly wrapped in a talisman to ward off living beings and to preserve the finger that was inside.
There was no way I was going to eat a dried corpse after all. It could have disease and shit.
"Now that you found it can we go?" Midoriya asked like he had ants in his shoes.
"We need to fill the hole back with dirt first," I said and we did just that.
After that, we went back to our city. No one found out what happened in the end and everything returned back to normal.
I opened the box when I returned home and consumed my finger without trouble. My power had been growing even without consuming a finger, it might take decades but even without the fingers, I would grow back my powers anyway.
But the fingers, filled with technique and the cursed energy I had when I was Daigo, helped me regain my former power faster. What should take three years, I obtained by eating one finger.
The taste of human flesh brought back some unpleasant memories. Like for example the memories of Sukuna devouring sorcerers in a ritual to increase his Cursed Energy reserves, or the memories of Daigo Arata as he was forced to devour the corpse of his own friend to increase the template.
Such shitty memories, I wished those were forgotten forever. But memories were what made a person so I had to endure.
Because in the end, both were me.
I did not stop with just a finger though, with every new memory gained I sought out more of my hidden fingers to regain my power. Midoriya was a permanent accomplice in my quest to collect the fingers.
He never asked what I was doing exactly, he knew it was important to me and that was enough for him to help in any way he could.
He was my first friend.
And a step towards regaining what truly mattered to me....
A life worth living.
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