More than a decade ago,
Midoriyama Satoshi. Three years old.
Satoshi could barely remember the time when he first met Lydia. During that time, he was still three years old, and Lydia was only a couple of months younger than him.
Both of them haven't awakened their superpowers yet, which meant that they crossed paths without any prejudices against each other.
They met like any other childhood friends. Apparently, their parents were pretty close when they were in high school. Joseph Schwarz was one of the top students of USA back then. As for Midoriyama Tatsuki, he never really cared for ranks... but he got the number one stop anyways.
"And that's how it is. I'll be spending half a month undercover. Things are brewing by the border of, you know, that country." Joseph Schwarz muttered.
Back then, Joseph Schwarz was still not the number one superhero of Switzerland. In fact, he wasn't even in Switzerland during that time. That's why he didn't play the pacifist role when it came to international conflicts.
"And this is your kid? Sure, she can stay. We have our own little ball of energy right here, another one wouldn't make that much of a difference."
From the corner of the door, Joseph peered towards the living room and he saw Satoshi, playing around with his blocks. It was a game where you'd have to put a certain shape to its corresponding hole. However, Satoshi found a lazy way of doing it, and he kept on putting all the shapes into one hole.
"He looks like you," Joseph commented as his gaze landed back on Tatsuki.
"Of course he does, same with your daughter, he looks like you."
Lydia listlessly looked up when Tatsuki raised his voice a little bit. She had no clue what all the excitement was about, but she noticed a boy her age in the living room.
She waddled towards Satoshi even before her dad tried to stop her.
"Hoh, looks like they'll get along." Ayumu clasped her hands together as she watched the two bundles of joy about to interact with each other.
It was a slow process for Lydia since she could hardly walk. But a few seconds later, she found herself staring down on the sitting Satoshi.
"Why don't you go in, see how your daughter acts before you go." Tatsuki offered, to which Joseph obliged without further prodding.
"Is your mission... top secret?" Tatsuki asked while the three of them watched the two kids.
"Y-yeah, and it's an emergency mission. That's why I had to leave her here.My wife's on a different mission, that's why we couldn't look after her. This was the first time our missions overlapped with each other so we can't really do much about it." Joseph explained, heaving a sigh.
"It's all right. Your daughter's in good hands. Besides... look, they're getting along quite well." Tatsuki pointed out.
Well, he said that but all they did was stare at each other.
Satoshi had no idea why a strange girl was looking down on him, and he decided to stare up at her as well. He didn't want to break his eye contact since that would mean he lost.
For two minutes, the two of them stared at each other without twitching. On one hand, Satoshi craned his neck upward. Even though his neck hurt, he continued staring into Lydia's eyes.
As for Lydia, she was staggering to keep herself upright. This was the first time she lasted two minutes standing up, and it exhausted her.
Before the three-minute mark hit, Lydia finally broke her stance and she fell on her rear side. Satoshi let out a giggle as he clapped his hands.
He won, and he was celebrating.
The Midoriyama Duo and Joseph Schwarz misunderstood the situation though. They really thought that Lydia and Satoshi were getting along.
They weren't.
Lydia pouted as she tried to smack Satoshi on the head. However, Satoshi leaned back to dodge her slap, and it frustrated her. She let out a gurgle before leaning in and grabbing the block that Satoshi was holding. It was the cylindrical one.
Satoshi was furious, he reached out and tried to grab the toy from Lydia's hand, but Lydia wouldn't let go of the block. Satoshi started gurgling and complaining in his own baby language.
Lydia was complaining in her own language as well, and it was almost turning into a full-blown fight between toddlers.
Satoshi tried to grab the block a second time, but Lydia was quick to act, she slammed the block sideways to hit Satoshi on the temple.
"Oops~" Joseph said as he used his superpower to surround Lydia's hand with water. This stopped her from hitting Satoshi. "It's not nice to hit a friend, Lydia."
Confused, Lydia looked at her arm which was covered in water. She recognized it and her gaze shifted to her dad who was approaching her.
Lydia finally realized what she was about to do and she hung her head in a drooping manner. Seeing her reaction, her dad let go of her hand.
With an apologetic expression on her face, she handed the block to Satoshi.
Seeing that she was about to cry, Satoshi shook his head and he handed her the box with holes instead. He didn't want to get the block anymore, he just wanted to console Lydia and play with her instead.
"See? They're getting along just fine." Tatsuki commented as he slammed his knee and started laughing.
.....
Back to the present,
Lydia and Satoshi stepped forward into the ring after the Nurse made sure that Satoshi was back in full health. Then again, the Nurse did warn him to drop the fight, but Satoshi didn't want to back down, not when there was a huge crowd who was waiting for his second bout.
"Satoshi, remember when we were three years old..." Lydia trailed off as a smile appeared on her face.
"What? You still remember that? I thought I was the only one who remembered that." Satoshi smiled. It was a nostalgic story, one that his parents repeated to him even when he grew up.
"Well, I'm not going to lose, Satoshi, I'm not going to hold back either." Lydia declared.
"Go ahead," Satoshi responded, assuming a fighting stance as Knighthawk gave the signal to commence the match.
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