In the Blink of an Eye

Chapter 3 – Prologue Part 3

Obviously the yen I had didn't last me till the end of my first week. I knew I needed to find some way to get resources to keep myself alive if I was going to continue living on my own. I couldn't solve this issue the legal way though, all legal businesses require the permission of a parent or guardian in order for a minor to be allowed to work. The places that ignored this law and employ children for their businesses all tended to pay less than the standard minimum wage. That's assuming they even pay their child workers at all; some take advantage of orphans like me and in exchange for a place to sleep and enough food and water to survive the children were to work for free. I refused to put myself in a situation where I was at the mercy of a shady employer to survive.

I knew that I would have to take what I needed to survive but I had some issues with that. The morals that my mother and father instilled in me made the act of stealing from someone that had done nothing wrong as far as I knew detestable. On top of that I knew that I would likely have to hurt the people I'd steal from eventually. Harming an innocent for no reason other then to satisfy my own desires was not an option for me as I knew how unfair that was due to my current life being the cause of a careless act of destruction. This lead to me thinking of who would be acceptable targets for me to steal from, the answer to that came to me immediately. I would take what I needed from those that caused suffering to the innocent, Villains.

I figured the best way to go about this would be to search back alleys or follow a civilian that was on their own to see if anyone would attempt to steal from them. I decided that night time would be the best time for me to do this as it would be harder for me to be spotted along with my quirk naturally making me hard to keep track of or catch. Satisfied with the plan I had and unable to think of any other way to get money I initiated my strategy. Taking my last water bottle with me to help make sure I didn't dehydrate myself through use of my quirk I looked out the broken window of the apartment and blinked to the top of a nearby roof.

My quirk made getting to from one rooftop to another a breeze. No matter the distance I would always reach my intended destination within three to four tenths of a second so long as my target was within eye sight and there was no solid obstacle in my way. I had to be careful though, going from one spot to another takes the same amount of stamina from me that running that distance would. For example if I were to blink from the street up to the edge of a roof 50 feet above me it would feel like I had just ran 50 feet in a straight line. If I were to push my quirk to far and tried to blink to let's say a mountain in the distance from the city my body would become dehydrated and I'd likely die from a heatstroke. It was during my first theft of a Villain that I learned that my quirk had another aspect that helps give me a edge in combat.

I had been searching for someone to steal from for a few hours on my first night out when I came across two people talking to each other in a alleyway. Deciding to spy on them for a bit I watched as one of the two men, who upon looking closer realized couldn't have been out of his teenage years yet hand a wad of yen to a man in hood. After he counted the money he'd been given, he put it in the back pocket of his jeans before pulling a plastic bag out of his jacket pocket that contained white powder and handing it to the teen. Realizing that the man was a drug dealer I figured he'd be a suitable target to steal from. What happened next solidified my decision to take from the dealer.

"This is it, what the hell man, I gave you 10,000 yen and this is all your giving me!?" The teen shouted to the dealer while waving the bag in his face.

The dealer just scoffed and waved tried to wave the teen off, "That's all it was worth kid, if you wanted more you should have brought more, now get out of here I got other, more valuable clients to check on."

Stupidly, the teen kept antagonizing the dealer saying,"There is no way that 10,000 yen is only worth this much! Give me more or give me my yen back."

"Kid you're really starting to piss me off, get out of here I don't do refunds." the dealer growled out in a irritated tone.

What the teen did next was something that even then I thought showed a serious lack of common sense or self preservation. The teen grabbed a hold of the dealers jacket and started shaking him while shouting, "Give me my yen back you damn cheapskate, I didn't steal my parents money for this bullshi-." That was as far as he got before the dealer pulled a knife from his jacket pocket and stabbed him in the stomach all the way to the hilt of the knife.

"I fucking told you to piss off you damn brat, you should have listened when you had the chan- WHAT THE?" The dealer spun around, leaving the knife in the teens stomach after feeling me pull the teen's yen out of his back pocket.

"Thanks for the yen, I'll be sure to use it in better ways than you." I taunted, preparing to blink back up to the rooftops. As I was about to blink away I noticed something that caused me to pause. The dealer's hand was moving toward me, clearly about to grab me. What caught my attention though, was how slowly his hand was moving, it was like he was moving in slow motion. After staring at this for what seemed to me was a few seconds my head started hurting. The small migraine building up made me lose focus of my quirk and stop using it. When I did the dealer started moving normally again. Due to seeing that he intended to grab me while he was moving in slow motion I had enough of a reaction time to dive between the dealers legs and avoid his hand by inches.

The dealer spun around, glaring at me he demanded,"Get over here you little shit." Rolling onto my back, I him saw take long steps toward me. Panicking I ignored the slight migraine I had and activated my quirk. While choosing where I wanted to blink to I noticed that once again the dealer was moving in slow motion. Acting quickly this time I blinked toward the dealer.

I'm sure the dealer wasn't expecting me to essentially move in a blur from my position on my back a few feet away from him, to being a few feet off the ground, both of my feet planted firmly in his crotch. Gravity kicked in after I lost momentum from my quirk and I fell on my back below the Dealer. He had dropped to his knees, both hands covering his balls while squealing in pain. Taking advantage of this I kipped up from where I was on my back, my feet connecting with the Dealers face. The move knocked him over and out as I rolled forward off his head and stood up. Turning around to see that the dealer was out cold I decided it wouldn't hurt to see if he had more yen on him.

"H – hey kid a little help please." Snapping my head up from the dealer I looked over and saw that the teen that had been stabbed was sitting against the alleyway, knife still in his gut. Rolling my eyes I finished searching the dealer, unfortunately he didn't have any more yen but I did take his phone and another knife he had on him.

Walking over to the teen, I crouched down in front of him and said, "Man looks like you got yourself in a shit situation huh?"

Opening up the dealers phone I entered the number for the police and waited for them to pick up. After a few seconds someone answered, "Hello you've reach the Taris city police station, please state your emergency and you're current location."

I responded by saying, "Yeah I have no idea what street I'm near but basically some dumbass teen thought it would be a great idea to use money he stole from his parents to buy drugs from a dealer and got stabbed for his troubles. The teen still has the knife in his gut and the dealer is knocked out and will soon have cut Achilles tendons. I will leave the call going so you can trace the signal, later." I placed the phone next to the teen, not even listening to what the receptionist said after. I walked over to the downed Dealer and pulled the knife I took from him out before stopping in front of his feet. I pulled off his shoes before lifting his right leg and cutting his Achilles tendon. Doing the same to the other I stashed the knife in my pocket and was going to blink to the roof to get out of the area and return to the apartment complex.

"Wait, aren't you going to give me my yen back?" The teen managed to get out between gasp.

Turning to him with a smirk I answered "Why would I do that? The way I see it you brought this on yourself with your own stupidity. You just sit there and try not to bleed out." Blinking up to the rooftop before I could be interrupted again I took a large drink of my water, feeling slightly winded from the use of my quirk and the scuffle with the drug dealer. Already able to hear sirens closing in I made my way back to the apartment. I managed to make it back without anyone stopping me along the way. Going inside through the broken window that had become my entry and exit point, I Decided that was enough excitement for one night. I went to the closet to get some sleep, planning on putting my newly acquired funds to use tomorrow to purchase more supplies.