The rain had stopped, but Z-City never truly dried. A persistent dampness clung to the ruins, a physical manifestation of the lingering despair. Hakai's new home was a testament to this—a sixth-floor studio in a crumbling apartment block, its windows frosted with grime, the air inside stale and cool. It was less than a kilometer from a certain, far more famous, affordable caped-hero's apartment, though their paths had yet to cross in any meaningful way.
This was his sanctuary. Spartan, utilitarian, and silent. A single sleeping roll lay in one corner. In another, a small stack of canned goods, meticulously organized. There were no decorations, no personal effects. The only thing that marked the space as his was the black hoodie hanging from a nail on the wall, the blue dragon now a silent guardian in the gloom.
His days fell into a monotonous rhythm, a stark contrast to the violent ballet of the shelter.
His mornings began at dawn. He would stand at the broken window, his sharp eyes scanning the waking city. He watched the slow, determined patrols of C-Class heroes, their movements rehearsed and predictable. He observed the subtle shifts in the monster population—a new nest of Giant Crows in the eastern sector, a pack of Wolf-level Sewer Rats growing bolder near the market. It was people-watching on a grand, existential scale. He was a scientist studying an anthill, and the ants were desperately trying to convince themselves they weren't about to be washed away.
Boredom was his constant companion. The thrill of the Deep Sea King had been a spike in a flatlining graph, and the return to mediocrity was a palpable weight. The world had shown him a glimpse of a worthy opponent, only to recede back into a sea of trivialities.
This boredom often led him to the same small, run-down grocery store. The bell would jingle, the same weary shopkeeper would tense, and Hakai would move through the aisles with a ghost's silence. He never bought much. Just enough to sustain the machine of his body. He would often linger, not out of any desire for company, but because the outside world was just as monotonous as his apartment. He'd lean against a wall near the canned beans, his presence a dark spot in the periphery of the other shoppers.
"Hey. You can't loiter here."
The shopkeeper's voice was a familiar refrain, worn thin by repetition.
Hakai's red pupils would shift from the street outside to the man, his expression unchanging. He wouldn't argue. He wouldn't apologize. He would simply straighten, place his items on the counter, and complete the transaction in silence before stepping back out into the grey light. The dismissal was a minor, recurring event in the cycle of his day, as insignificant as the passing of a cloud.
But the world was not entirely static. In the wake of the rain, whispers had begun to circulate.
In a smoke-filled backroom, a group of low-level thugs planning a shake-down were interrupted by a hooded figure. Their weapons were sliced into metallic confetti before they could even blink. The figure was gone, leaving only the scent of ozone and the memory of terrifying red eyes.
In the Hero Association's local branch, a junior analyst reviewed a fragmented security report from J-City. It spoke of a civilian with impossible abilities, of a fighting style that consisted of invisible cuts. The file was marked with a question mark and the tentative designation: "Phantom Cutter."
A pair of A-Class heroes, recovering from a tough fight against a Demon-level slug monster, claimed to have seen it. Just as they were about to be overwhelmed by its acidic slime, a series of razor-thin cuts had suddenly appeared across the monster's body, segmenting it with surgical precision. When they looked for the source, they saw only the retreating back of a black hoodie, vanishing into the urban maze.
The rumors were disjointed, contradictory. Was he a hero? A vigilante? A monster himself? He was a ghost story told in bars and briefing rooms. A "hooded figure" who left no calling card but devastation, who fought with a calm brutality that was more unsettling than any monster's roar.
Hakai, of course, was aware of none of this directly. But he could feel the shift. He noticed the way the few people who saw him on the street would quickly look away, a new kind of fear in their eyes. It wasn't the fear they reserved for monsters. It was the fear of the unknown, the unpredictable.
He stood at his window one evening, watching the lights of the city flicker on. The rumors were a distant hum, a faint vibration in the air. They meant nothing to him. Fame was a hollow currency. Recognition was worthless.
All that mattered was the fight. The search for the next spike on the graph. The next opponent who could make his heart beat faster than the slow, tedious rhythm of this post-rain world. The whispers were just background noise, a prelude to a song he had not yet heard. But he was listening.