[Third Person POV]
**Hosu City Streets**
The city of Hosu moved at its own rhythm—a steady pulse of evening foot traffic, distant car horns, and the warm glow of shop signs reflecting off wet pavement from an earlier rain. It was the kind of city that felt perpetually on edge, like it was holding its breath between moments.
Iida Tenya and Manual walked side by side along the main sidewalk, their footsteps creating a measured, professional cadence between the buildings.
Iida's posture was immaculate as always—spine perfectly straight, chin level, arms moving in precise coordination with his stride. Manual walked slightly more loosely beside him, carrying the comfortable ease of a veteran hero who'd learned to project calm even when he felt anything but.
A woman walking with her young daughter paused on the sidewalk ahead, her eyes lighting up with recognition. She raised a hesitant hand in greeting, clearly delighted to see Pro Heroes on patrol. Manual responded immediately, raising his hand with a warm smile that came naturally after years of community policing.
Iida gave a crisp, reflexive bow—proper, respectful, perfectly executed.
"Normally," Manual said, resuming their conversation as the woman and her daughter continued on their way, "we'd be sitting at the agency waiting for dispatch calls to come in. But lately..." He let out a short sigh, scratching the back of his neck. "Hosu has been on edge. The Hero Killer situation has the whole city spooked."
"Is that due to the reduction in patrol coverage?" Iida asked but his eyes never quite stopping their constant scan of their surroundings.
"Exactly." Manual nodded. "Fewer available heroes, more ground to cover, and a criminal who specifically targets Pro Heroes has made everyone jumpy." He laughed lightly, though there was weight behind it. "I have to say, having Ingenium's younger brother patrolling with me is a genuine morale boost. My colleagues are going to be hearing about this for months."
Manual continued speaking, already mentally composing the story he'd tell at the next hero association gathering, his thoughts drifting pleasantly toward the pride of hosting such a notable intern.
Iida heard the words but didn't truly register them. His mind was somewhere else entirely.
The Hero Killer... Stain.
The name moved through his thoughts like a blade—cold, sharp, leaving damage in its wake. He studied every dark gap between buildings, every shadowed alley where the streetlights didn't quite reach.
His eyes traced the geometry of the city with obsessive precision, mapping potential locations, calculating patrol patterns, analyzing which areas offered the kind of concealment that a predator would prefer.
'He's here,' Iida thought, jaw tightening. 'I can feel it. This city reeks of him.'
"Iida-kun."
Manual's voice carried a shift in tone that snapped Iida partially back to the present. The older hero's expression had changed—his easy warmth replaced by something more careful, almost hesitant.
"Can I ask you something directly?"
Iida turned to face him. "Of course, Manual-san."
Manual was quiet for a moment, choosing his words with visible care. "You came here to find the Hero Killer, didn't you?"
The question landed like a physical impact. Iida's expression flickered—just barely—before he controlled it.
"I..." He didn't finish the denial. There was no point. Manual had worked the streets of Hosu long enough to read people accurately.
"I'm glad you're here," Manual said quickly, and his sincerity was genuine. "Genuinely. Your abilities, discipline and your dedication are very good—having you on patrol makes a real difference." He paused. "But as someone who's been doing this long enough to have seen what revenge does to people... I need to say something."
He stopped walking, turning to face Iida properly. "Using a Quirk for personal gain is prohibited. Even heroes operating legally can cross that line if their motivations become personal rather than protective."
Manual's voice wasn't accusatory—it was careful, measured, like someone trying to defuse something dangerous without triggering it. "I'm not justifying what Stain did. What he's done is unforgivable. What he did to Tensei-san..." He shook his head. "There are no words."
Iida's hands clenched at his sides, his knuckles whitening inside his gauntlets.
"But the path of going after someone like Stain with revenge in your heart..." Manual looked at him steadily. "That path has a way of changing the person walking it. And your brother—" He hesitated. "I didn't know Tensei very well. But I knew him enough. And I'm fairly certain that a hero who inspired that much respect in others didn't survive everything he went through just so his younger brother could become something he wouldn't recognize."
Iida's throat tightened. The words cut deeper than he expected, finding gaps in the armor he'd been building around himself for weeks.
'Maybe all of this was in vain,' he thought, the doubt creeping in despite everything. 'Maybe chasing this shadow was pointless. Maybe Tensei-nii-san would be...'
His fists clenched harder. Before either of them could continue, the crackle of Manual's earpiece cut through the evening air.
"Manual-san, this is dispatch. We have a Code Red situation developing in Sectors four through seven. Villain attack confirmed, multiple incidents simultaneously. All available heroes requested to respond immediately."
Manual's demeanor shifted instantly, his hand moving to his earpiece as he broke into a run. "Copy, dispatch. We're responding now." He glanced at Iida. "Let's move!"
They ran together toward the distant sounds that were just now becoming audible—sirens, something that might have been an explosion, the ambient noise of a city beginning to panic.
Iida ran, but his mind continued working independently. 'A villain attack of this scale... it doesn't fit Stain's pattern,' he reasoned.
His analytical nature cutting through the emotional turmoil automatically. 'Stain operates in shadow, with surgical precision. He targets specific heroes for specific reasons. He doesn't announce himself with mass chaos or large-scale destruction.'
'But if there's chaos... if heroes are being drawn toward a major incident...'
'Then someone with quiet purpose might find the moment they were waiting for.'
...
[Izuku's POV]
The bullet train cut through the night like a steel blade drawn across dark silk, its wheels singing against the tracks as the lights of Hosu blurred past the windows in streaks of amber and white.
The passenger car was quiet—the late hour leaving most seats empty, with only scattered travelers sitting in comfortable silence, some dozing, some staring at their phones.
I shifted in my seat, trying to find a position that didn't make my thoroughly abused muscles protest. Three days of Gran Torino's training had left me in a permanent state of "definitely alive but questioning it."
"Are you sure it's okay for us to be doing field observation at this hour?" I asked, glancing at Gran Torino in the seat to my right.
The old hero snorted with his arms crossed, looking impossibly comfortable for someone his age. "Best time, kid. At night, those bastards feel more comfortable crawling out of whatever sewers they hide in during daylight." He grinned, and there was something almost predatory in it. "Our chances of running into something interesting go way up. Should be fun."
"F-fun?" I gave an awkward smile, not entirely sure how to respond to a retired hero describing potential villain encounters as entertainment. "I'm not sure that's the word I'd use, but... if you say so, Gran Torino-san..."
I pulled my phone from my pocket almost unconsciously, my thumb navigating to my messages with practiced habit.
Iida-kun's name sat at the top of my conversation list. The message I'd sent—asking how his Hosu internship was going, if he was okay, if he'd seen anything strange—was marked as read. But no reply.
'He read it ten minutes ago,' I noted, frowning at the screen. 'Iida-kun always replies within three minutes. He's the most punctual person I've ever met in my entire life—he probably has a personal rule about response times.'
The anxiety started as a small knot in my stomach, slowly tightening.
"On your phone again?!" Gran Torino huffed beside me. "I swear, kids today can't go five minutes without staring at those things. What's so important in that thing anyway?"
"Sorry, it's just—" I started.
BOOM!
The world lurched as a thunderous impact slammed into the train from somewhere outside, the shockwave transmitting through every surface simultaneously.
The train's brakes engaged with a horrific screech of metal that set my teeth on edge, and the sudden deceleration threw me forward hard.
My face met the back of the seat in front of me with painful enthusiasm. "OW—!"
I brought my palm to my nose, feeling the sting of impact radiate through my face. My phone had nearly escaped my grip entirely, and I clutched it reflexively.
"W-what was that?!" I looked around, wide-eyed, as the lights flickered twice before stabilizing.
The automated speaker system crackled to life: "Passengers, please remain seated. We are making an emergency stop due to—"
BOOM!
A second explosion, closer this time—much closer—and then something happened that made every rational thought in my brain shut down simultaneously.
The wall of the train car erupted inward.
Metal tore like paper. Glass detonated in every direction. Passengers screamed as something massive crashed through the side of the carriage and hit the floor with enough force to crack the structural supports.
The dust took several seconds to settle. When it did, the shape that resolved from the debris made my heart try to evacuate my body through my sternum.
A Nomu.
It thrashed on the floor, its exposed brain pulsing with unnatural rhythm, its limbs reorienting as the creature regained its bearings from whatever had sent it through the train's wall.
The passengers erupted. Screaming, scrambling over seats, pressing against the far end of the car—the orderly quiet of the bullet train dissolving instantly into pure chaos.
"A—a Nomu?!" I shot to my feet, One For All already beginning to stir in my blood.
"Stay put, kid."
I barely had time to register Gran Torino moving before he was simply gone from his seat—a blur that resolved into the old hero's boots making contact with the train's side wall, using it as a launch platform with his Quirk's jet propulsion.
The carriage shook with the force of his impact as he collided with the Nomu at full speed, wrapping around it with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd been doing this for decades.
"Let's go for a little walk," I heard him say with infuriating casualness—and then both he and the Nomu tore through the hole in the train's side and disappeared into the night beyond.
"GRAN TORINO!" I ran to the opening, one hand gripping the torn metal frame as wind immediately hammered my face.
And then I saw Hosu, my breath stopped.
There were Portals... Dozens of them, scattered across the city skyline like wounds torn in reality itself—wide, dark voids swirling open like gaping mouths against the night sky. And from each one, shapes were falling.
They plummeted from the portals like rain given monstrous form, crashing into streets and rooftops and the spaces between buildings. Each impact sent shockwaves rippling outward. Cars flipped. People ran. Fires erupted in pockets throughout the city, orange blooms against the darkness that turned the night into something hellish.
'Why are there so many of them?!' The question screamed through my mind. 'The one at USJ was created specifically to fight All Might—to fight someone like All Might! And that was just one! But there are dozens down there!'
All Might told me about the Nomu and the League of Villains' plan during the USJ attack—their attempt to kill him. He even spoke of the raid meant to capture them, how the core members slipped away while countless Nomu created chaos.
I believed most of the Nomu had been taken down back then. But seeing this many now… it felt like a nightmare that never truly ended.
The train shook again—harder this time, something impacting the roof with devastating force. The ceiling buckled inward, a cascade of metal and insulation raining down on the remaining passengers, who pressed into the floor and the spaces between seats, too terrified to move or scream.
The silence that followed was the kind that had weight to it.
Then—CRASH!
Four grotesque arms burst through the windows simultaneously, glass exploding inward like shrapnel. Suppressed screams finally erupted as a second Nomu pushed itself through the shattered frames and into the carriage.
It was larger than the first—taller than any human in the car, with pale, sickly green skin stretched over enormous muscles that barely fit in the cramped space. One massive, unblinking eye dominated its face, the pupil tracking in erratic, spiraling patterns before locking onto the nearest cowering passenger.
A middle-aged man in a business suit pressed himself against the floor, unable to move, unable to do anything but watch as the Nomu's arm reached toward him with slow, inevitable purpose.
Time slowed in my head.
I remembered the USJ. I remembered watching Aizawa-sensei fight one of these things. I remembered Kaminari-kun's attacks—the most powerful I'd ever seen from a classmate—was the only thing being enough to destroy it.
Every survival instinct I had screamed a single, unified command... Run.
So I ran—straight at it.
One For All surged through my body in a controlled torrent, green lightning crackling across my limbs as my body moved on automatic, driven by something deeper than rational thought.
"I can't just stand by and let you hurt them!"
The words came out half as declaration, half as reassurance to myself. My fist clenched, power concentrating into my arm, and I launched myself.
The Nomu's eye tracked me. Its arm lashed out—fast, powerful, aimed to intercept. But—
'It's slow.'
Significantly slower than the USJ specimen. This wasn't the same tier. Slower reaction time, less coordinated movement, less overall combat intelligence. Whether that was because this model was simply less enhanced or because Gran Torino had taught me to move faster, I didn't know and didn't have time to analyze.
I twisted midair, bending my body around its grab with the mobility training Gran Torino had been drilling into me for three days, and drove my fist directly into the Nomu's singular eye with every ounce of power I could channel.
SMASH!
The impact was explosive. The Nomu launched backward out through the hole in the train's side, disappearing into the night air with a roar that faded as distance swallowed it.
I landed hard, stumbling once, my knees absorbing the impact as I straightened and tried to remember how to breathe.
My heart was hammering against my ribs like it wanted out.
'That wasn't like the USJ Nomu,' I realized, mind already breaking down the encounter. 'That one could withstand Aizawa-sensei's combat, Todoroki's ice, and Kacchan's explosions combined. This one went down from a single focused strike. They're not all the same level. These are... different. Mass-produced?'
My eyes went to the city beyond the torn train wall. "Iida."
The name arrived in my mind like a key finding a lock. Hosu. Stain. Iida's unread message. The timing of all of this—
My heart hammered harder for a completely different reason.
I turned back to the remaining passengers, forcing my voice into something resembling steady authority. "Everyone, please stay calm! Heroes are already responding to the situation! Remain in the car and stay low—help will arrive soon!"
The words felt inadequate, but they were all I had.
"HEY! KID!" The train conductor appeared from the next car, his face ashen, his professional composure fraying at the edges. "Get away from that opening! Whatever you did—however you did it—it's still not safe up here!"
I moved to the edge of the opening and looked down. The ground was far. Very far.
My legs registered the height before my brain could override the instinctive response. My throat went dry.
"Too timid." Gran Torino's voice materialized in my memory with perfect clarity.
"You overthink everything. You're too cautious. Too afraid of making the wrong move. If you never take the risk, you'll never reach anyone in time."
I closed my eyes. Took one breath and let it out.
Before the conductor could reach me, before my fear could catch up with my resolve, I climbed onto the ledge and let One For All surge through my entire system simultaneously—10% distributed across my body, 15% concentrated specifically in my legs.
My muscles vibrated with contained power. The energy built and built, needing release.
"Kid, WAIT—!"
Then I jumped. The train's ledge cracked beneath my feet, concrete and metal giving way under the explosive launch force as my body was propelled outward into the open night air. The wind roared in my ears as I twisted instinctively, body rotating to manage the trajectory.
"NO—!" The conductor's voice reached me, distant and horrified, as he reached the edge and stared into the void where I'd been standing a moment before.
I fell through open air for exactly long enough to feel very aware of how high up I was—and then my enhanced legs absorbed the impact as I made contact with the side of a building, the force transferring into forward momentum rather than injury. I rebounded immediately, launching to another surface, then another, bouncing through the urban geometry of Hosu like a human pinball surrounded by green lightning.
Each impact rang through my bones, but the training held. The technique held.
Behind me, I dimly heard the conductor's completely baffled: "...What just happened?!"
But I didn't stop to explain. "Iida—I'm coming!"
I charged headfirst into the heart of the storm.
...
Bullet Train — A Few Moments Earlier
[Denki's POV]
'This is really, truly, profoundly irritating.'
I stood in the train car, trying to look casually unbothered while approximately eighty percent of the male passengers performed the exact same ritual: casual glance, double take, then the kind of sustained staring that they probably thought was subtle but It was not.
Rumi Usagiyama, in civilian clothes that somehow still managed to communicate "professional athlete with no concept of low-key," was standing beside me and looking out the window with the peaceful expression of someone who absolutely knew she was causing a scene and had decided this was normal.
'I literally cannot blame any of them,' I thought, strictly keeping my own eyes forward. 'I am also guilty of looking. But that's beside the point. The point is that it's annoying when other people do it. This is completely logical and not hypocritical at all.'
The saving grace was that nobody was actually approaching her. Anyone who looked long enough apparently intuited, correctly, that Rumi Usagiyama's response to unwanted attention would likely involve her legs and their faces.
"This area's been quiet because of Stain," Rumi muttered, her gaze tracking across the city lights beyond the window. "If we run into him out there, might actually be worth our time." She rolled her shoulders with a casual crack. "I'm getting restless. Morning training wasn't enough."
'We fought for four straight hours and destroyed significant portions of a forest,' I thought flatly. 'Amd that's not enough. This woman is a force of nature wearing a hero costume.'
She turned to look at me, and there was that familiar predatory gleam. "Let's hope some strong guys decide to cause trouble tonight. Make it actually interesting."
"You're hoping villains show up so you can fight them," I said slowly. "You understand that implies hoping for civilian endangerment, property destruction, and general—"
"Yeah, yeah." She waved a hand. "But also fighting."
'I genuinely don't know how to respond to this. I also can't tell her she's going to get exactly what she's asking for in approximately fifteen minutes, because that would require explaining things I cannot explain.'
The train began pulling into the Hosu station.
The moment we stepped onto the platform—not quite fully stepped, really; I think my second foot was still technically on the train—Rumi's phone rang with the specific tone she'd set for official Hero Association calls.
She accepted it without hesitation and her expression began shifting from casual to professional with impressive speed.
Whatever the dispatcher said was enough to make her expression sharpen further. "Understood. En route immediately."
She ended the call and turned to me. "Large-scale villain attack is happening now. Multiple incidents are observed across Hosu simultaneously. They're calling in all available heroes."
'There it is.'
"Come on," Rumi said, already moving. "You can observe, maybe get some real field experience in. This is better than any training scenario."
Then she did something I was not prepared for.
She stepped behind me, wrapped her arms around my shoulders, and locked her legs around my waist with the matter-of-fact efficiency of someone buckling a seatbelt.
I stood completely still for approximately one full second. 'What.'
"You're faster than me," she said, already pulling out her phone and marking Hosu's crisis center on her map. "No point in wasting time with separate transportation when you can just carry me. This is the most efficient solution. Also, stop making that face—it's embarrassing."
"I'm not making a face," I said and my voice admirably steady given that her weight was distributed across my back in a way that my teenage brain was cataloguing with entirely unwanted enthusiasm. "I'm just processing the situation."
'She is a professional hero and my mentor. She is treating this with complete practicality. I will also treat this with complete practicality. I am a mature individual with excellent self-control and—why is she so warm what is happening to my brain—'
"Denki." Her voice was dry. "We're burning time."
"Right. Yes, let's roll."
I activated Raijin Drive and the world compressed into familiar slow-motion as yellow electricity exploded across my body, every sense sharpening to crystalline clarity.
I shifted my grip on her legs to something secure and stable, planted my feet—And ran.
Hosu materialized around us in seconds, the journey that would have taken thirty minutes by conventional means compressed into a single sustained burst of speed. We landed on the roof of one of the taller buildings in the crisis zone, and Rumi dropped from my back with easy, practiced grace.
Then we both looked out at Hosu.
'Oh, that's bad.'
Nomu—multiple, varied, falling from purple portals scattered across the skyline like grotesque rain.
Below, the city was already fragmenting into pockets of panic and destruction. Fires bloomed in the distance. Distant sirens layered over the sounds of chaos. Heroes were responding, but the scale of simultaneous incidents was clearly overwhelming the standard coordination systems.
"Do I have permission to use my Quirk and lethal force if necessary?" I asked while scanning the battlefield below.
Rumi's eyes were already moving with practiced tactical assessment. "Granted. But priority is civilian evacuation—get the innocent people out of the combat zones before you engage the Nomu directly." She cracked her knuckles with a sound like gunshots. "Clear the area, then clean up the monsters."
She looked at me with that wild grin spreading across her face. "Consider this your practical exam."
Then she launched herself off the building's edge.
I watched her land on a Nomu's head far below with enough force to send it through the pavement, her battle cry carrying upward as she immediately engaged two more that came at her from either side.
'She is absolutely, one hundred percent, a battle maniac. But she looks very hot like this, I need to accept the truth and move on with my life.'
I closed my eyes briefly, pushing aside the spectacle of Rumi casually destroying monsters and shifting my focus inward.
My electrical sense extended outward from my body like invisible tendrils, reaching through the electromagnetic field of the city—feeling the bioelectric signatures of living people, the thermal patterns of fires, the structural integrity of compromised buildings.
Five hundred meters in every direction, laid out in my mind like a map made of lightning.
There. School bus, three blocks east—Nomu actively attacking it. Seven children, one adult driver, two injured. I opened my eyes and moved in that direction.
.
.
.
From the outside, it would have looked like a yellow lightning bolt striking the pavement beside the school bus—except the lightning bolt had hands.
The Nomu had its arms raised above the bus's roof, building force for an impact that would have been catastrophic. It never got to complete the motion.
I materialized from the electrical blur, reached through the bus's emergency door with speed fast enough to be a blur to normal perception, and had all seven children plus the driver on the sidewalk twenty meters from the bus before the Nomu's arms had finished their downward arc.
The creature struck the empty bus roof instead, caving it inward uselessly.
Then it turned, confused, trying to locate the threat.
I reappeared behind it. My electrically-enhanced kick connected with the back of its skull with enough force to drive its face into the pavement, concrete cracking in a spider-web pattern three meters in every direction. But the strange thing is it didn't get up.
I turned to the children, who were staring at me with expressions that ranged from terrified to awestruck. They were young—elementary school age, clutching each other in a huddle on the sidewalk, some crying quietly.
I crouched down to eye level and gave them the most reassuring smile I could manage. "Hey. It's okay. You're all safe now."
"..."
Then one of the kids—small girl, twin pigtails, currently pointing at something behind me—said, "Mister, there's two more."
I didn't turn around. I'd already felt them coming through my electrical sense thirty seconds ago.
"I know." I kept my smile steady. "Give me just one second."
I stood up, turned around, and found myself facing two more Nomu, both significantly larger than the first. They regarded me with the dim, hungry attention of creatures built for destruction rather than thought.
I grabbed each one by the head.
BAM. BAM.
Their faces met pavement with enough force to leave craters and both Nomu went still.
I turned back to the children, brushed nonexistent dust off my hands, and gave them a thumbs up.
"There we go. All handled." I met each scared face with as much calm confidence as I could project. "Heroes are dealing with the rest of what's happening in the city. I need you guys to move away from the road and find a building to shelter in—preferably one without large windows. Can you do that for me?"
Hesitant nods from seven children and one thoroughly shaken bus driver.
"Good. You're all being really brave." I straightened up. "And hey—if things get dangerous again and you need help? Yell as loud as you can. I'll hear you."
I was gone before they could respond, as a yellow lightning trailing my exit.
The next five minutes were a blur—not metaphorically, but literally. My electrical sense had become a constantly updating map of crisis points, prioritizing by severity and proximity.
An elderly woman trapped beneath collapsed scaffolding three blocks north—I cleared the debris in seconds and carried her to the emergency triage point that the police had hastily established.
A group of college-aged women cornered by a Nomu that had apparently decided an alleyway was its personal territory—I resolved that situation with a headfirst introduction between the Nomu and a brick wall, followed by a precisely calibrated electrical surge through its neural tissue that ensured it would not be getting up.
"Hello there!" I told the shaken women afterward, because after everything it felt important to at least be polite. "My name is Flash, hero-in-training. Is anyone hurt?"
Thier stunned head shakes in denial.
"Good. The police emergency station is two blocks that way. Please head there immediately."
I left before they could ask questions, which was definitely the professional choice and absolutely not because three of them had started crying with relief and I didn't know how to handle that.
A burning apartment building on the corner of Fifth and Higashi—residents trapped on the upper floors while a Nomu systematically destroyed the structural supports on the ground floor. I worked the evacuation from the inside out, removing residents floor by floor while simultaneously disrupting the Nomu's ability to cause further damage through increasingly creative applications of targeted electromagnetic pulses.
I wasn't keeping exact count of how many people I was moving, but my electrical sense registered each successful evacuation as a signature that went still and calm rather than frantic and afraid.
'Iida is somewhere in this city right now,' I thought, weaving between buildings at half my maximum speed to maintain situational awareness. 'The Hero Killer is somewhere in this city.'
I'd deliberately given Iida space to have his confrontation with Stain. As brutal as it was to calculate, that encounter—that harsh collision between revenge and reality—was something Iida needed to experience. Some lessons didn't take when delivered gently. Some understanding only came through surviving your own worst decision.
But surviving was the operative word. 'I have time and know how this plays out.'
I swept another pocket of civilians out of a crumbling storefront and handed them off to a pair of scrambling Police officers.
'But I should probably get there soon.'
...
[Iida's POV — Hosu Alleyway]
"Tenya! To the scene—this way!" Manual's voice carried over the sounds of chaos as they ran together toward the nearest reported incident.
I was running beside him and then suddenly I wasn't.
The alley opened on my left—narrow, dark, the kind of gap between buildings that the city lights couldn't quite reach. A gap that smelled like blood.
And in that gap, I saw him, then everything else ceased to exist.
The city noise dropped away. Manual's voice became irrelevant background static. The fires, the Nomu, the panic—none of it registered anymore.
Only the figure in the shadows mattered... Only him.
I turned without thinking, sprinting into the alley at full acceleration while Manual continued forward, not yet registering my absence. My leg engines roared at maximum output, exhaust erupting from my calves as I crossed the distance in seconds.
'There he is.'
The shape of him—the blades, the wrapped form, the stillness of someone who had never in his life felt genuine fear—resolved from the shadows into sharp, terrible reality.
'That bastard. The one who crippled Tensei-nii-san and ended his career. Left him lying in a hospital bed that should have been—'
The thoughts fractured into pure rage that burned away everything else.
Even the Pro Hero pinned against the alley wall beside Stain. Even the blood on the stones. Even the rational part of my mind that had been reciting Manual's warning about revenge and consequences and what Tensei would actually want.
All of it were consumed by rage and I charged towards him.
Stain's reaction was immediate and practiced—the motion of someone who'd done this hundreds of times, who'd faced people coming at him with hate in their eyes and developed perfect reflexes for exactly this situation.
His sword came up in one smooth arc.
I ducked—barely, the blade glancing off my helmet with enough force to send it spinning away and the impact snapping my head to the side and dumping me onto the pavement in an ungraceful sprawl.
I scrambled back to my feet before my pain receptors finished processing the hit.
"A kid in a costume," Stain muttered, his voice like gravel dragged across rough stone. He studied me with those burning, fanatical eyes—not impressed and not threatened. "Who are you? Get out of here. This isn't the place for children to play hero."
"You must be the Hero Killer—Stain!" The words came out at a volume I hadn't planned. "I've been pursuing you!"
He looked at me with an expression that somehow managed to be both contemptuous and coldly analytical.
"Your eyes," he said, his voice quieter now, almost conversational. "You're here for revenge, aren't you?"
Something in his tone shifted—not softer, but somehow more serious. His blade came up, the tip leveling at my face with precise, unhurried confidence.
"Watch your mouth," he said, his voice carrying a razor's edge. "Your age won't protect you here. Nothing will protect you if you keep walking this path."
Every muscle in my body wanted to lock up. Every rational thought I had screamed that I was outmatched, that this man had crippled heroes far more experienced than me, that the correct response was to buy time until backup arrived.
But Tensei's face was in my mind. The hospital room. The machines. The stillness where there had always been movement and confidence and the certainty that my brother would always be there, always be Ingenium, always be the hero I'd spent my entire life trying to be worthy of following.
I planted my feet. "Listen up, criminal." My voice came out steadier than I expected, even as my heart slammed against my ribs. "I am the younger brother of a hero you attacked. I've come to stop you in his stead."
Stain's expression didn't change, but something shifted behind his eyes.
"Tensei-nii-san told me to inherit his mantle. To carry Ingenium forward." The words came from somewhere deeper than anger—somewhere that felt like grief that hadn't finished processing yet. "I won't let him down. I will avenge what you took from him."
I raised my head fully, meeting his gaze without flinching. "So remember this name—for however long you have left as a free man." My voice cracked slightly on the last few words, emotion breaking through the surface despite everything. "I am Ingenium. The hero who's going to take you down."
Stain's eyes widened b not with fear. With something colder, sharper—fury at a perceived wrongness that cut to the center of his entire philosophy.
"Is that so?" he said, his voice dropping to something barely above a whisper that somehow carried more threat than a shout would have.
He moved. "Then it's time for you to die."