28 - 0
That was Kouta's record after six months. He had never lost a single fight. Even against opponents with esoteric or overwhelming Quirks, he'd always found a counter using New Order, often without even revealing the true nature of his power. His philosophy was simple: overwhelming force and speed, applied with precision, could trump almost any hax.
Now, he was about to add another win to his tally. Giran had presented him with an offer too lucrative to refuse: a single match with a massive payout. As Kouta stepped into the familiar, grimy underground arena in Japan, he immediately sensed something was off.
His opponent stood waiting. It was a hulking, muscular abomination with exposed brain matter and dead eyes.
A Nomu.
'What is a Nomu doing here?' Kouta's mind raced. 'Is All For One testing me? Trying to gauge the limits of my Quirk?' It was a distinct, unsettling possibility.
He pushed the thought aside, stretching his arms and activating his foundational rule the one that synced his body with the Earth's rotational force. The familiar, immense power settled into his bones.
The announcer's voice cut through the tense silence. "Fight!"
The Nomu didn't roar or charge mindlessly. It moved with a terrifying, intelligent speed, closing the distance in a blur and launching a piston-like punch aimed to pulp Kouta's skull.
Kouta didn't dodge. He planted his feet, drew back his own fist, and met the charge head-on. 'I'm sorry, whoever you used to be. Let me end this.'
Their fists collided.
KABOOM.
A sphere of plasma-white energy flared around Kouta's knuckles. The impact didn't just sound, it manifested as a visible shockwave that ripped outward, shattering every window in the venue and shaking dust from the rafters.
The Nomu's arm, from fist to shoulder, experienced instant, total molecular disintegration. The shockwave didn't stop there; it propagated through the creature's entire body, bypassing its Shock Absorption and overwhelming its hyper-regeneration in a nanosecond.
The bio-engineered monster didn't just fall, it was rendered into a ruined, lifeless mass of tissue before being launched across the arena like a discarded ragdoll.
It was over in one blow.
Kouta stood in the center of the ring, his expression unchanged, not even winded.
But then, chaos erupted from the stands. Spectators began slumping in their seats, collapsing to the floor. The announcer crumpled over his microphone with a soft snore.
"ESCAPE! WE'RE BEING RAIDED!"
Panic exploded. Through the main entrance, a squad of heroes in full-face respirator masks stormed in.
"Stand down! You are all under arrest!" a hero shouted, his voice muffled by the filter.
The smell, a sweet, cloying pheromone, was now thick in the air, amplified by some Quirk. Most of the crowd was already succumbing to forced sleep.
Kouta, still in the relatively open center of the pit, had been partially shielded from the initial wave. He looked around, analyzing. 'This place was airtight. Someone tipped them off.' His eyes flicked to where the Nomu's body had landed.
It was gone. Vanished.
'Kurogiri.' The conclusion was immediate. This was a setup. A test, and then a cleanup.
He started to run, muttering a new rule as he moved, replacing his combat ones.
First Rule: "[My body instantly rejects, expels, destroys, or neutralizes every foreign object, substance, marking, energy, signal, or effect that is not part of my original natural biology.]"
The creeping drowsiness vanished from his system as if it had never been there. He bolted for the fighters' tunnel.
"Ingenium! One target unaffected, heading for the left wing! Pursue!" a hero's voice crackled over comms.
Kouta sprinted down the concrete hallway, now filled with a faint, pinkish smoke. The neutralizing rule protected him.
"A2, is there a safe escape route?" Kouta hissed into his mask's internal mic.
A2's voice responded instantly, her usual cheerfulness replaced by urgency. "Enter the storage room ahead and to your right. There is a ventilation shaft that leads upward to the main stadium. Please be careful, Kouta-kun."
"Lead the way."
A2 began projecting a subtle directional arrow onto the inside of his mask's lens. He moved swiftly, following the guidance.
"Kouta-kun, there's something moving very fast toward your position from the rear," A2 warned.
He didn't hesitate. He quickly activated his second rule slot.
[I possess peak spatial awareness.]
The world around him snapped into hyper-definition. He felt the displacement of air a fraction of a second before a gleaming, armored fist blurred toward the side of his head.
Kouta jerked his head back, the punch grazing the fabric of his hood. Using the backward momentum, he pivoted and lashed out with a savage side kick, his shin connecting with Ingenium's armored torso.
THUD.
The force of the counterattack was enough to stagger the Turbo Hero, forcing him back several steps.
Ingenium looked up, recalibrating, but Kouta was already in motion. He launched off the ground, a superman punch aimed squarely at the hero's faceplate.
CRACK.
The reinforced helmet fractured under the blow. Ingenium reeled, his systems glitching for a critical moment.
It was all the opening Kouta needed. He didn't press the attack; he disengaged, turning and sprinting down the hallway toward the storage room.
Ingenium shook off the disorientation and gave chase, his engines flaring. His gloved hand stretched out, fingers inches from Kouta's jacket, but then the compromised seal on his cracked mask failed.
The concentrated sleep-inducing pheromone flooded his respirator. His vision swam, his legs buckled, and he collapsed to the concrete floor, unconscious.
Kouta didn't look back. He slammed into the storage room, locked the door behind him, and moved to the back wall. Finding the vent, he tore the cover off. He used his jacket to wrap his right hand, creating a crude barrier against potential forensic traces or tracking powders, and began to climb.
As he ascended, he swapped his second rule.
[My body is light as a feather.]
His movements became effortless, silent. He ascended the vertical shaft quickly, reaching an intersection where the pink smoke thinned and vanished. He continued upward until he reached a final grate. One powerful kick blew it open, and he hauled himself into a dimly lit electrical room within the stadium's superstructure.
He was out. For now.
Standing in the shadows, he deactivated all his rules. Then, focusing intently, he set a new, comprehensive one.
[My body refracts all electromagnetic waves around it, emits no detectable sound or vibrations, emits no detectable heat or thermal radiation, leaves no physical, chemical, biological, atomic, quantum, or informational traces, and generates no identifiable data records, signatures, or disturbances in any medium.]
To the world, he ceased to exist. Cameras saw nothing. Thermal scans registered empty space. Microphones heard only ambient noise. He was a ghost in the machine.
He walked calmly past clusters of tense police officers and heroes cordoning off the area, unseen and utterly undetectable.
'Guess this is my last day working with Giran,' he mused silently. 'Roxana can handle my material and funding needs from here.'
Unbeknownst to him, in severing one connection, he was binding himself more tightly to another. His involvement with Roxana was about to plunge him headlong into the deep, dangerous waters of her family's affairs.