The alley stank of piss and rust. Accelerator moved through it like a ghost, hands in his pockets, eyes scanning shadows. The city had dimmed—street lights flickered with neglect, and most signs had gone dark. Only the hum of vending machines and the buzz of an overhead neon ad reminded him this world still pretended to be civilized.
He turned a corner into another narrow backstreet when the noise changed. Footsteps. Sloppy. Pacing. Then voices—low, growling, desperate. "Yo. You lookin' to get lost, kid?" Two figures stepped out of the gloom. One wore a dirty varsity jacket, the other had a metal pipe slung over his shoulder. Their faces were cracked and twitching with whatever drug they'd swallowed tonight. Desperation hung off them like fog.
Accelerator said nothing. The one with the pipe laughed. "What, too scared to talk? That shirt you're wearing'—looks really clean. Bet you got some cash to spare." He took a step forward. The pressure shifted. The moment the thug attempted to strike the accelerator the man was airborne, no windup, no sound, just his barrier. The thug slammed against the alley wall hard enough to leave a human-shaped dent in the sheet metal. His friend barely had time to scream before he was launched straight down into a dumpster, lid snapping shut with a steel bang.
Silence returned. Accelerator exhaled slowly. "Amateurs," he muttered. He walked over to the bodies. Both were groaning—alive, but barely. He didn't care. He knelt down and rummaged through their pockets. A few crumpled bills. A prepaid phone. Some smoke. Lighter. One of them had a wallet with around 25,000 yen. It would do.
He stuffed the cash in his pocket and dropped the wallet back on the guy's chest like a final insult. Accelerator stood up and looked at the dark mouth of the alley ahead of him. For now, he had a little money. A direction. Maybe enough to survive another day. The city hadn't noticed him yet. But it would.
About an hour later, the alley was quiet again. Only the flicker of a busted streetlamp and the occasional hum of a vending machine kept it from falling into complete silence. Bootsteps echoed softly as a tall figure entered the scene. Scarf trailing behind him, goggles resting low over sharp, tired eyes.
Aizawa Shouta. He didn't say anything at first. Just scanned the area. One man crumpled in a dented wall. The other half-conscious inside a trash bin. Both bruised, not bleeding—like they'd been hit with just enough force to ruin their night, but not their lives. The kind of precision you didn't get from your average quirk brawl.
Aizawa crouched near the man in the varsity jacket. He checked for signs of major injury. Nothing life-threatening. Then he looked up at the impact point again—dead center. No scorch marks. No freezing. No elemental trail. No signature at all.
He stood and pulled out his phone.It rang once. "Tsukauchi. It's Aizawa," he said, voice flat. "I'm in the 7th district, back alley behind a XXX near XXX Street." A pause. "Two men. Unconscious. One embedded in a wall. Other's in a dumpster. No structural damage, no witnesses, no obvious quirk residue. Something's off."
He glanced around again. "No signs of a fight. Just impact. Clean. Too clean." Another pause. "I don't think this was a hero. I think we've got someone new." He hung up. And kept looking at the alley. Something told him this wasn't a one-time thing.