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Chapter 30 - Chapter 32: Echoes in the Alley, Rumors on the Web

Chapter 32: Echoes in the Alley, Rumors on the Web

The city night was a tapestry of sirens and shadows. On the rooftops above the chaotic scene at the supermarket, a monstrous figure leaped from one building to the next, his movements fueled by a cocktail of agony and pure, undiluted rage. Muscular clutched his chest, a searing, deep pain radiating from a single point on his forehead. It felt less like an injury and more like a violation of physics. Below, police searchlights sliced through the darkness, their beams sweeping across alleys and streets.

"Spread out! He can't have gotten far!" a voice yelled through a megaphone.

Muscular melted into the shadow of a water tower, his breathing ragged. His mind was a maelstrom, replaying the moment over and over. The bored face. The gray hoodie. The casual, almost lazy flick of a single finger. He, a villain who reveled in overwhelming his victims with mountains of flesh and unstoppable force, had been swatted away like an insect.

"What was that?" he snarled internally, the muscle fibers around his arm spasming. "It wasn't a Quirk… there was no energy, no build-up… it just felt… absolute. That damned bald guy." The humiliation was a poison, far more potent than the pain. He hadn't just been defeated; he had been dismissed. "Unforgivable," he growled, the sound a low vibration in his throat. "I'll find you. I swear, I'll find you, and I will tear you apart piece by bloody piece!" He pushed off the rooftop and disappeared into the sprawling darkness of the city, a vengeful ghost now haunted by the memory of a man who just wanted a discount on pork.

The next morning, Saitama woke up to the pleasant aroma of sizzling pork belly. He hummed a cheerful, off-key tune as he prepared a simple but satisfying breakfast of rice, eggs, and the hard-won pork. The night's events were already a fading, insignificant memory. To him, he had successfully thwarted a rude shoplifter and secured a bargain. It was a victory. He sat at his small table and turned on the television to a morning cartoon show, completely oblivious to the fact that on every news channel, a storm of his own making was beginning to rage.

The "Quirk Quibbles" blog post had been the spark, but the supermarket incident was the explosion. The internet was on fire. The hashtag #UASecretWeapon was now competing with a new, even more sensational one: #SupermarketFlicker.

The two mysteries began to merge and mutate in the chaotic ecosystem of online forums.

>>HeroWatcher_22:Okay, I'm calling it. The 'Flying Janitor' from the festival and the 'Hooded Finger-Flicker' from the supermarket ARE THE SAME GUY. The power level is too similar.

>>QuirkAnalyst_Pro:The physics don't line up. The tunnel at the festival suggests matter displacement. The supermarket incident suggests kinetic force on an unprecedented scale. They could be two different, unregistered powerhouses. The scary part is, what if they're on the same team?

>>Just_a_Civvie:Forget that, did you see the hole in the wall?! My brother-in-law works construction and he said not even a wrecking ball could do that so cleanly. What is U.A. hiding from us?!

The public narrative was a runaway train, and U.A. was tied to the tracks.

At the supermarket itself, Detective Tsukauchi was nursing a migraine. The scene was a logistical nightmare. The physical evidence was impossible. The unconscious villain, Muscular, was a known S-rank threat who had disappeared from the scene of a massacre months ago. The fact that he was defeated was shocking enough. The way he was defeated was the problem.

"Let me get this straight," Tsukauchi said, pinching the bridge of his nose as he re-interviewed the trembling teenage cashier. "The suspect… a man in a gray hoodie… argued with the villain over a package of discounted meat."

"Y-yes, sir," the cashier stammered.

"And then the suspect flicked the villain in the forehead."

"Yes, sir."

"And the villain flew backwards, through the meat counter, through a reinforced concrete wall, and across an alley into another building."

"Y-yes, sir…"

Tsukauchi looked at the security footage for the tenth time. It was corrupted. A strange, magnetic-like surge had wiped the data for the exact three seconds of the incident. All he had was a blurry image of a man in a hoodie entering, and a clear image of him leaving with a bag of groceries. The man had even paid. It was the most polite, destructive, and utterly baffling crime scene of his entire career.

The chapter closes as the sun rises higher. In his office, Principal Nezu has just ended a very tense phone call with the chairperson of the Hero Public Safety Commission. He believes he has a handle on the "Secret Weapon" conspiracy. He has a plan. He is in control.

His assistant runs in, her face pale, holding a tablet. "Sir," she says, her voice trembling slightly. "You need to see this. There was… another incident last night. At a supermarket in the Kiyashi Ward."

She plays a news report. The screen shows the Muscular-shaped hole, the trail of destruction, the terrified witnesses. Nezu, Aizawa, and Toshinori watch. Their expressions shift from controlled, corporate concern to a shared, silent, and deeply personal horror. Aizawa slowly, deliberately, buries his face in his hands. It was worse than he thought. The idiot hadn't just caused an incident over a vegetable. He'd done it over a piece of meat, too.

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