Somewhere in Tokyo, early Sunday evening.
The whole district was now empty, ridden of its civilians. All but one – a certain fearless grape without a clue what he was doing – had left.
Guided by some remote, smothered noises of unknown nature, Mineta walked forward until he reached an old, run-down and arguably disused underground parking lot. As he could not identify the source of this muffled racket, which kept growing the further he dived into the concrete depths of the earth, the boy hesitated many times. This isn't looking like a pleasant vacation…
The more he walked, the lesser the distance between him and the incident occurring simultaneously deadened its noisy symphony. It sounded like violent clashes were going on. The lonely, unarmed dwarf knew it might as well be big trouble for curious minds. It was absolutely not recommended to intervene without good reasons to and reinforcements at hand. Mineta was not a hero anymore, held no right to step in, was well advised to turn back, hide and call for help.
It basically was what any other equally courageous people would have done. Wait, wait!
He stopped and did as told. He waited, over and over again. Where were they? The whiny tears, the mental breakdown, the loss of control, the cowardly fear? It felt nothing like on that fake boat at the U.S.J. during the attack. Nothing at all, but the willpower to move on.
"I don't understand shit!" Mineta muttered, covering up his voice with a hand. "What happened to me? Just thinking of coming face to face with a casual villain used to make me wet myself, but right now, I don't feel any warm liquid soaking my legs. This is insane!"
He actually was fearless. Feeling like he had nothing to lose, not even his life, helped a lot.
In parallel, Mineta found out he knew how to use sarcasm as an excellent self-mockery tool too. Apart from his hypocrite, insensitive comments aimed at other people whilst speaking his mind, he had never truly mastered such art beforehand. The boy was no stranger to verging on the cynical side, as he more than often used to come off as insulting when he criticized his peers for their own perceived debauched behaviors, among other things. To make sure he wasn't dreaming, the boy grossly touched, felt and rubbed his groin. They were here, big and real.
"I just don't get it; this place used to be empty, but all I can feel now is a pair of…well, balls growing where it still was plain void only yesterday. I thought I'd never have this kind of feature on my body, save for my hair…"
Was it a dream come true, or too late to enjoy? Maybe both.
The fact is, the Fresh-Picked Hero was downright excited. For the first time, he longed to get into a fight. Not for the first but definitely for the last time, as he was about to die. Nothing to lose but all to gain trying; win-win strategy.
Modern History was full of stories of budding heroes taking part in desperate, improvised rescuing tasks without proper authorization. Like Midoriya saving Bakugo from a villain's grasp before they actually applied for U.A. High School.
The latest Mineta had heard about was the tale of a "bad but good-hearted guy" going by the name of Gentle Criminal. Being an unsuccessful applicant to most hero schools, his failed attempt to do a hero's job had owed him a string of painful, costly consequences tearing his life apart. Out of spit, he had turned to a career on the opposite side. Himself an aspiring young shot in the business of villainy, Gentle had tried to get his break and make a name for himself, by starting up his own adventure. Unfortunately for him, it had all come apart at the seams, when the inexperienced beginner had chosen to take on U.A. to get his hand in. An encounter with Midoriya had set the record straight, hastening the end of his dreams of greatness.
Yet another tear-jerking ending. My own ending will be bad too, but only for me.
Mineta passed a door, went down a bunch of steps, opened another door, climbed another string of stairs. Concrete everywhere.
On the second level below the ground, he tiptoed alongside a wall in the middle of the basement. The lights still functioned, but most parking spots were free of cars. Once the full length had been walked, he paused and took a deep, stifled breath. From behind the portion of a dividing wall between two parking rows, the sparring shamble had reduced to a single adult man's cries of agony, supplemented by the heartfelt supplications of a younger girl in her teens.
Hearing a man and a women's voices wreaked havoc in the boy's memories. As he looked back on Gentle Criminal's sad tale, Mineta reminisced the things left behind as though he was the veteran of a lost war.
Despite the two having their differences, Mineta felt close to Gentle's cause.
That of a soul disappointed in life, aspiring to become someone important, but only to fail miserably and be regarded as good-for-nothing because of some untamed demons or unfixed clumsiness. Gentle had ruined his life that way, falling from grace like Icarius after burning his own wings. In Mineta's case, women had been his sun; flying too close to them had caused the wax keeping the pieces of his fragile life together to melt. He was now falling right back to his Maker.
He took a step ahead. Fuck it, I'm already a bad guy anyway. Dying or living makes no difference.
The boy squashed his body against the wall, until it stood flat and mute. With utmost care, he rotated and slowly pushed his head forward on his left, letting it glide in silence until it stuck out beyond the wall's edge. When he eventually got to see what was happening right behind him, his already wide-open eyes nearly popped out of their orbits.
"Y-you!" he whispered in agonizing awe.
Alone in the moonless black night, Asui spared no efforts despite the freezing cold.
Relentlessly, her tongue clutched to the edges of the city's highest skyscrapers as she flew over them. In her quest to seek the lost boy, she traced patterns and acrobatic feats that looked spectacular when viewed from the ground. Had it not been TV or sleep time for most, the entire population would be looking up with an army of phones taking pictures or filming the stunt-frog performing live. There was no more age limit on going viral than there was for suicidal tendencies.
"Serious conversation with him…figure things out once and for all… hero, classmate and friend of Minoru-chan… won't have peace until then."
She paused on the roof of a building, which served as headquarters to a multinational entertainment heavyweight.
From her panoramic point of view, she distinguished the suggestive, saucy-looking neon signs on the outside premises of an illegal brothel located in some lower-town areas. Her automatic, unconscious connection of such a place of sin and perdition with the grape boy had her riddled with guilt. Sexual perversion – and its more-or-less acceptable derivatives – were all the rage in that kind of smutty place. It was not just an ode to sensuality or bawdiness in a respectful way, but downright degrading to human dignity as a whole. Even someone like Mineta did not deserve to be associated with the waves of riff-raff and filthy customers, which made up the largest turnover of Tokyo's most powerful crime syndicates.
Would he stoop that low to visit a whorehouse? Or was he just acting up? she thought over.
She reminisced the few occasions when she had fought alongside Mineta.
The Unforeseen Simulation Joint Incident, the Summer Camp. What she had seen of him – apart from a few peeping incidents – was mostly Mineta confronting and, in some instances, overcoming his fears. The boy had thrown himself body and soul into his training, worked on improving his Quirk to the point of bleeding until he blacked out, saved his teacher from his doom at the hands of the League of Villains. His ingenuity and quick-thinking had even earned him rare praise from Asui, and the right to remain on friendly terms.
The demons lying dormant inside were but a small part of him. Mineta was still a youngling, inexperienced at life, trying to find his feet in the world. His ridiculous crying, whenever submitted to panic or excessive stress, was proof that the boy never had learned how to fight against himself, and win. For lack of proper guidance.
Froppy lost the train of her thoughts when her phone rang. It was one of her teammates.
"Hi, Koda-chan. Do you have anything for me?"
The timid classmate took his time to answer with a sweet, unobtrusive voice.
"N-not a lot, except one thing: a girl whom the birds heard speaking to friends of hers on the phone. It was…about a young boy she had previously met. The words she used matched Mineta's description."
"Kero! That's great! Can you tell me more about her?"
Such enthusiasm gave Koda the confidence to switch from an indistinct to a more vibrant diction. Asui's vocal sound was so soft and gentle it magically turned the most fearful vocal cords into the most comfortable talkers. Even Mineta wasn't indifferent to her power of speech.
"Apparently, she had an encounter with a boy about his size and with similar purple-colored hair. Not a lot is known about him, except that he helped her fight off a group of street thugs attacking her. Soon after she started a conversation, the boy ran away. This is all I know for sure."
Had Koda changed the order of his words – or omitted some – it would have made the anonymous Samaritan look like a third molester. However in this case, the optimistic frog was almost a hundred percent sure Mineta and the girl's rescuer were but the same person.
He was still alive, and still a hero.
"Where is she now?" Asui asked.
"The birds lost track of her when she entered a train bound for Osaka."
Asui had expected scarce responses of meager importance in the first days of her investigation, but she certainly hadn't hoped her first helpful clue to show up so fast. It was a good beginning.
"I see. Thank you very much, Koda-chan! Call me back if you have anything new."
"You're welcome, Asui. I will."
After he hang back, Koda sent her the coordinates of Mineta's latest known position – presumably the place where the two had met. The Frog Hero immediately got underway.
"Hello darling, it's been a while."
At the beginning, there was darkness. From the moment the angelic lady's eyes made contact with her beloved angelic husband's, there would only be light forever after.
"Yes, it's been a very long while." she serenely confirmed, holding her soulmate's hands instantaneously offered to him. "What a life I've just lived!"
The recently-deceased mother looked back on her material existence.
She had left the world of mortals with a last, yet her greatest subconsciously deliberate mistake. A phial of poison kept in store for the worse day, which her forgetfulness and absurd decision to randomly pick up, had had her drink on what could have been her best day, causing her to die the day of her rebirth. An unconscious wish coming true by means of the parapraxis of a lifetime. It was so stupid it felt cheap, if not hilarious.
What was I thinking? she laughed as if it had been painless all along.
Though it actually hadn't, it now felt like it had. A life without any source of negativity. It always turned that way upon crossing the veil into the afterlife.
Her heart no longer bore the scars, pains and awful memories of what her carnal body and tortured mind had been through. Death had set her free, bringing her soul back to an untainted, immortal and ethereal state that instantly revived the purest feeling. Of all she had experienced, only good lessons, valuable knowledge and fond sensations remained. It had all been a rewarding and objective experience, upon which she'd draw whatever would be required during her restful cycle of regeneration in the afterlife – by the side of the ones she loved – whilst waiting for her son to join her, and the subsequent resurrection for their next adventure to begin.
Right at that time though, present time mattered the most.
"I believe we've got one unfinished business, back there. Something important that has to be done." her husband said.
"Indeed, we do. Shall we do it together?"
The man tenderly enshrouded his wife's cheek in the palm of his hand, which he used to draw her face closer to his lips, and kiss her for the first time since years of separation.
"As always, love." he whispered. "Our boy needs it."
Lover Mode had not worked this time. They were no match for someone like the Hero Killer.
Danjuro Tobita lay wounded and paralyzed on the ground, blood seeping through the blade gash on his right arm. Covering the injury with the palm of her hand, Manami Aiba cried over his agonizing body in a desperate embrace.
Gentle Criminal and Brava? Mineta made a mental description, not yet exposing himself. What on All Might's balls are they doing here? I thought they had been jailed!
Both were in civilian clothes, a far different version of themselves than what Mineta remembered from their online videos. Had they escaped just like Stain? Or were they no longer criminals and once again free to live their lives? It didn't matter much, as it was all about to end.
Witnessing la Brava sobbing, out of fear for a loved one, instantly caught Mineta's heart and draw his compassion a great deal. This touching, spontaneous display of tenderness in the face of adversity was of disproportionate potency – to the point of making the lonely grape jealous. His focus was so strong it took him an evenly disproportionate latency time to notice Stain himself.
The powerful villain – back on the hunt – was responsible for this beautiful show of poetic romance. Quite unintendedly. Was I that deprived of love in my youth? Mineta deduced. The world's too tough for me. Such a warming scene stealing my heart is the most important reason not to become a hero. Stain comes second.
Talking of the Devil, the Hero Killer was done observing his victims, as they powerlessly waited to be finished off. He came closer, drawing his katana.
"I beg you, Stain!" Tobita moaned, spitting blood in between words. "Feel free to kill me if you want, but please, spare her life!"
Ironically, Mineta had been thinking about him minutes before. So much for coincidences.
Standing stoically next to them, Stain looked down on his first preys of the day. His malevolent aura filled the air with nauseous evilness. To put it bluntly, anyone with a fragile stomach would have thrown up a week's worth of meals by the time he lay his eyes on the deadly murderer. It wasn't Mineta's problem here, as his own perverted aura had got him prepared to limit damages.
"Is that all you can do, Villain? What's left of your dignity? For a self-proclaimed man of courtesy, you seem to have thrown away your entire soul just to become a lame waste of society. And you stole a child's heart just to make pathetic videos. You're a shame to this world."
A duo of complete defeat and resignation took shape on Gentle's teary face.
Once a magnificent brainiac with mastermind ambitions, and a love for plotting complex schemes, Gentle was back to his original state of unfortunate loser. From the day his parents had kicked him out, he had been dreaming of grand adventures. With his alter-ego-like persona, which he regarded as extraordinary, he had hoped such a psychological pillar would help him thwart fate's plans for him. Vainly. Seconds before trespassing, by the hand of a sword virtuoso whose fame he would never equalize, the former gentleman in villainy was resigned.
A man's core character never really changes, he reminisced Stain's words before engaging him.
Probably was he right, and Gentle would not live long enough to know it for real.
One hand holding a bloody katana rose up, aiming for La Brava's neck as she protected her lover. The weapon flew upward in a semi-circle. A second afterward, it struck down at lightning's speed but stopped centimeters before slicing into the flesh.
Beheading would wait.
"W-why? Why are you doing this?" La Brava yelled in absolute fear.
The Hero Killer looked daggers at her. She buried her head in Gentle's chest, crushed by the brute fear Stain's black stare radiated throughout both their terrified hearts.
"I want to make sure you understand why I have to kill you." Stain coldly declared.
The brutality in his voice sufficed to block La Brava from going at him. They were at his complete mercy. The ensuing speech was of unprecedented violence and reprobation, completely devoid of any compassion for human life.
"Gentle Criminal, La Brava. The two of you are but low-class vermin without honor, abusing your Quirks like harmless toys for purely selfish reasons, which are limited to spreading misery and confined to the satisfaction of your ego's whims."
Gentle Criminal failed to gather the willpower to raise his blazing eyes and strike Stain with them like a bolt out of a thundercloud. However bad his predicament was, the man known to give his appearance lots of thought still found a way to retort with an elegant, gentlemanly voice.
"What kind of nonsense is this? I have ceased making such mistakes and it's been months now. Even then, all I wanted was to convey a message to the world and sound an alarm."
"But for what? Using this pitiful excuse to accumulate views on social media and be remembered? Pathetic. A true man of honor does not need such things as glory, fame, wealth or going down in History. Honorable men do not work for themselves or play with the fire inside. They serve society and dedicate their lives to others. What you have done, committing petty mischief and filming yourself in the act for the world to admire you, is the antithesis of what a good man is supposed to be. I, Stain, have come here to right the wrong that people unworthy of living with dangerous Quirks have done to this world. I am here to reclaim what a "hero" means."
"We are no heroes!" La Brava suddenly lashed out at him. "I thought you'd only attack them!"
She was determined to give the indestructible opponent a hard time, although she still wasn't credible as a threat. The tip of Stain's Katana aligned with her eyes – a blade of grass away.
"I take on whoever I think is unfit to use Quirks, before a bad use is made of it and unnecessary havoc wreaked. Heroes and Villains alike. You, Gentle, La Brava, are neither one. Nothing but a mediocre couple of human excretions, whose arrogant pretension is to rise above their condition. You are miserable, weak, incompetent and dangerous pieces of fifth. Your existence is a threat to society. The bad example you set is sufficient as a motive to end your worthless lives."
From his hiding spot, Mineta all the more empathized as he felt symbiotically related.
Someone being judged as mediocre, unworthy, beneath the average, weak, dangerous, ugly and a counterexample to what was morally acceptable. Mineta had been through this. Hearing Stain once again letting out a stream of these denigrations arose a terrible, virulent embryo of hatred for him. Gentle Criminal had survived through years of ordeals Stain knew nothing about. Nothing but the hare-brained ideas and foolish fanatism his crazed mind pictured undiscerningly.
Against all odds, Gentle still seemed to have a goal in life. Along with someone who loved him enough to help him on the path to redemption. Stain would sabotage such a huge effort, on the baseless ground that no room for error existed? Bakugo himself wasn't that close to being such a demonstration of arrogance and pride.
Only a second-rate copy.
"It's too late!" his former classmates would repeat like a broken record until it sunk in.
After La Brava, Gentle's turn came to burst into sobs with a full-on rain of tears.
"I-I admit…that you are not wrong." he bewailed his fate. "I'm not an angel and I've made mistakes…like that time I spilled my tea on my beloved little Brava. What kind of tea lover would do such a thing as wasting it? My bad, it was a shame of me to do that. "
"Oh, my dear, I love you so much!" La Brava mumbled with a strangled tone, puckering her lips. "But don't you feel guilty! It was a bit too hot, I agree on that. But I'm fine now, really."
Gentle pursued his own lips with equally choked moans of emotions.
"I-I just wanted to make a difference, to…to change things in my way…" Gentle struggled to keep his weepy voice audible. "J-just like you do, my friend!"
And they kissed.
Briefly but earnestly, without a glance for the one Gentle talked to, whose name he had forgotten. The Hero Killer winced in disgust. Being not taken seriously and called a friend by a filthy enemy, in the same sentence, would force him to choose a more horrible method to bestow death.
"Everyone makes mistakes, even out of love!" Gentle bemoaned in the tone of confession, staring passionately at his beloved sweetheart. "Everyone has the right to make mistakes, and you are about to commit an awful one!"
Stain's aura only turned more wicked.
"I'm doing this for the greater good. It is not a mistake but a necessary evil."
"Don't you have a heart? No sense of forgiveness?" La Brava's feminine voice begged.
Hearing her lament like a bad actress from a sentimental soap gave Stain a headache. Had he possessed a limb-regrow power similar to Mineta's, he would have torn off his ears.
"I forgive the ones who deserve to be forgiven. This is not your case. A broom does not forgive dust for existing; it sweeps it right into the trash bin. Whatever you think about it, it is my duty to exorcize the blight. With my holy sword, I chop off the Spawn of the Devil's head and purge the unworthy. In this world, I choose who deserves to live or die, who has what it takes to be a hero and who should never be. To those who defy this meritocratic law – shams, fakes, criminal - I oppose to them my sword and devotion."
His triangular-shaped head was so frozen it became more intimidating than ever. It was the face of a bloody butcher with morally-wrong beliefs, which he would live by no matter what. Fanaticism, mercilessness and obsessive cleansing were all his soul had left. Any interaction with him – should there be any other – was no longer open to debate.
"If that's how it is, so be it." Gentle sighed in acceptance for the last time.
The katana went up. The two lovers felt at the dusk of their existences. Convinced that they were about to die, both former villains hugged each other as tight as they could, closing eyes and breathing out.
It was the last straw.
As he watched, Mineta's thoughts went to Shinso. You've got the face of an abused child who's never been hugged, he had pretended.
It was a lie, partly. The tiny boy had been to kindergarten where innocent kids had shared physical bonds, read books to learn the definition of what a hug was, and had experienced it as a baby – if been carried in someone's arms for a diaper change could be considered as such. But never had he grown into a hugger child boy and teenager; with a regular dose of love cuddled into him. In Japan, physical displays of affection were not so common in public. In the private sphere, it could be acceptable only between two loved ones – bounded by blood, family or the friendship of a lifetime.
Mineta had inherited neither of these conditions. He never had been close enough to anyone, loved or been loved back. In other words, he technically didn't know how it felt.
For once, he would finally witness two dear ones embracing - other than in a staged piece of art. Nothing like these porn movies he had reviewed and watched in a loop, to fulfill guilty pleasures with a single hand. This time was a true, authentic show of love. That unique nectar of the gods of love Mineta would never taste.
Stain was about to ruin it all. Certainly not!
"Have a good sleep with God, Criminals."
"Sticky Rope!"
The katana went down, reaching the border of La Brava's neck yet another time – a threshold beyond which things would turn gore. They didn't, as for the second time, the sharpened cutting edge did not cut through the epidermis. Though not for the same reason.
"What?" Stain shouted out, an external force holding him in place.
The metal blade was being held back by a weird-looking, sticky and gluey mass, in the form of whip fabricated with several adhesive balls assembled together. Losing time would have been a deadly choice; the quick-witted boy pulled as hard as he could. Benefiting from the effect of surprise, as his enemy's grip over his weapon loosened, Mineta successfully snatched the katana off Stain's hands, sending it to fly uncontrollably and spiral its way into a wall.
La Brava had been waiting with her eyes closed for too long. Whenever Mineta came into her field of vision, tears of joy flooded her eyes.
"How wonderful! A savior to rescue Prince Charming and his Queen!"
Recovering from this twist of events, Stain turned to the impudent disruptive element. To his awe, he found an unfathomable, saber-rattling small boy whose eyes mirrored the exact same determination. A twisted, violently disturbing aura of lust for combat. Initially intrigued with the unforeseen intervention of such a troublemaking belligerent, even the two victims lying on the floor quickly gave up trying to establish reciprocal eye contact. He was damn too scary.
"Hey, plastic-surgery-gone-awry face!" Mineta started with a relieving, long-overdue punchline. "Do you mind if you let them finish what they started first?"
Stain stared at him like fate itself had spat on his face.
"Who…are you?"
"The one who's going to make you pay for interrupting a hug."
Asui landed on the said geographical coordinates a few minutes afterward. Just another public square. Unlike at night, it was overcrowded. Asui mingled with the masses of students, salarymen and customers going shopping. She lost her way several times, changing directions like a weathercock.
At some point, the repugnant, sleazy sensation of a dirty hand groping her breasts made her jump for anger. Dense crowds were prominent first-rate places of choice for stroking perverts to prosper. Except when their hands went astray over the skin of the wrong person. In a single but subtle tongue lash, Asui subjugated and brought the naughty boor to heel with a firm hit in the groin – a strategic weakness point where the tiny brain of most sexual harassers was located. All in perfect, meticulously calculated anonymity. Nobody noticed.
A moment later, she reached the grape boy's supposed interaction place with the girl.
Technicians occupied the premises, busy as they were placing security cameras where there previously was none. Probably had the girl reported her assault to state authorities, thus prompting them to increase levels of security by monitoring night activities. Mineta's influence could be seen, through every single camera that was being installed following his heroic intervention.
Besides, it wasn't only that Asui regarded as a testimony of Mineta's passing.
Being the victim of lecherous touching always left a mark. In Mineta's case nevertheless, what she could recall of his flirtatious behavior felt at odds with other instances of groping Asui had endured in her life as a young, pretty lady. The naughty, cheeky dwarf had placed a hand on her chest at the U.S.J., and she had blushed…in confusion? Embarrassment? Indignation? Or was it something else? In this instance, Asui even remembered feeling squarely flattered in the locker room, upon hearing Mineta's "eulogistic" comments as he lauded her physical features. At least a part of her was. The teenage part looking for attention from the opposite sex.
The Frog Hero spent minutes of intense reflection, examining thoroughly the starting point of a narrow street she suspected Mineta might have taken to make an escape. Despite walking it every which way, she was still clueless. Disheartened, she glanced at the people living their casual lives around her. Many couples were there, holding hands and browsing through shops.
Couples. Love life. As she pondered her own, she felt lonely.
It wasn't Asui's style to fancy herself a bit of a seducer. On the few occasions when she did, it looked more like a game of cat and mouse. Like the one she had been playing with Mineta all this time along, in collusion with his mischief.
When Mineta had mentioned his desire to choose Mt. Lady for an internship, Asui had straightforwardly accused him of having a lewd thought in mind. Mineta had denied it, but in the form of a half-hearted answer which sounded more like a witty version of "I don't see what you're talking about". As if they had shared a form of complicity. On Asui's side, the same applied to these too many times she had hit him with her tongue, or lifted him up above the ground like she was faking his hanging.
It was unexpectedly funny.
A comical kind of role reversal. Asui getting her revenge by having fun without Mineta's knowledge, and biting the biter. She did have enjoyed that. To compensate for the relative limitations in her abilities to express emotions and her deadpan stance, Asui had grown and maintained her own emotional perversity. In her own way, at her level, without it being visible or impacting her relations to others. In quite a similar fashion to Kaminari.
Thinking back on it nearly caused a chuckle to send endearing waves along her lips, and she wondered how strongly she used to wish Mineta would keep the uncalled-for attitude going.
Would she help him change anyway? Definitely. It almost seemed enjoyable to see him grow.
"We have to abort mission. Meet you at the Donut Stall." she read a text message from Aizawa.
Stupor and inability to grasp such a hasty decision took the words out of her finger; she failed to reply and left her teacher hanging with a textual brush-off.
Right when she had finally found the strength to smile again, all the accumulated good mood collapsed in a few characters. What could be happening again? The froggy student followed orders and walked at a fast pace in the given direction. On her way, the dark side of their little game blew up in her face, tarnishing her conscience.
No. Mineta clearly had not enjoyed it as much as Asui had. Getting tongue-hit, punished, chastised. Mineta suffered deep inside; showing it to the outside world had exacerbated the pain. For her part, Asui never had expressed how she truly felt regarding Mineta's behavior; had she opened up to him with her heart in her hand – like she had for others – they could have broken the ice, talk things over, understand and support each other.
Violence didn't make people grow. Love did.
Bundling him up alive in a tongue-made cocoon to suffocate his lewd remarks was not funny. Getting hit into submission was nothing fun. Almost drowning him at the U.S.J. wasn't either. Even though these punishments were as moderate as earned, they had led to no major changes. In his letter – Asui was sure of it – Mineta was wrong to congratulate her for hitting him. For she had been wrong to do it in the first place.
It couldn't last any longer. Time had come for a healthier, heart-to-heart reconciliation. Something powerful in her guts drove Asui to do it, although she couldn't explain it.
"You've made it on time. Good." Aizawa greeted her.
Indeed, she had. Second time she found herself close to this Donut Stall, second time Mineta was being a problem there. The first time, he had stolen Uraraka's donut after she took a bite, and Asui had tackled him to the ground to get it back. Now there she was again, running after the same boy with the instruction to bring back something. Him.
"What happened, kero?" she exclaimed nervously. "Why did we stop?"
Past this point, her unusually expressive face took over communication tasks. Aizawa slightly crouched to fit her size, and stared at the pair of apprehensive eyes in a line parallel to the floor.
"Asui, I understand how you must be feeling right now. You're afraid something bad will happen to your classmate and you want to bring him back uninjured. However, we have a bigger problem and we're stuck with that right at the worse moment…" he announced, taking a quick breath to evacuate his own anxiety. "Stain escaped from Tartarus and he's in roaming around."
Aizawa did not recognize her. More unhardened and emotionally-charged than usual, Asui reacted like she couldn't care less for the danger. What mattered the most was the one and only she craved to save from it.
Keeping a stable composure was Froppy's strongest feature. This sudden surge of emotions posed a threat to her mental stability; the teacher foresaw it would get more complicated to involve her in the operation, the further she weakened. Aizawa was a strict teacher with a disinclination to expressing feelings; he had more than once failed his students because of his lack of fondness for this virtue. Should he have to make amends by comforting a teenager in pain, using a naturally-less emotional candidate like Asui for "target practice" couldn't hurt.
For the occasion, Aizawa deliberately ran the risk of revealing a capital, top-secret information a police informer had told All Might and himself.
"When he escaped, Stain left a note to remind us, Pro-Heroes, of what his convictions were." Aizawa reveled. "As it happened, he didn't kill anyone in Tartarus. They were just guards doing what they were paid for; their duties. Stain hasn't changed, even as a fugitive."
"It also means he can't afford to waste a minute before he gets to work." Asui guessed in a soft, teary voice.
"Correct. Scarcely out, his hunt for unworthy heroes or students in heroics is already underway. Any one of us who finds himself in his wake is a great risk. This is why we can't just put our lives in jeopardy; the danger is real. If Mineta gets through this – I know he can – I think it will devastate him to learn one of his friends died looking for him."
It did not help reduce Asui's level of agitation. On the contrary, it worsened what Aizawa saw as pessimism. She flipped the problem the other way round, phrasing it in a different manner.
"If Stain is so powerful, could anyone stop him before Mineta gets hurt? With All Might gone and only Endeavour left…"
Her mind was over-filled with the memories of one specific video. Shot by a civilian witness, it showed Stain literally one-shooting a Nomu. Despite being critically injured and having lungs perforated by broken ribs. The videotape ended with Stain's bloodlust aura freezing Pro-Heroes with fear – Endeavour first – while he shouted his malefic convictions.
Asui was sure of one thing: Mineta didn't have enough body liquid to cry his terror out. He had better not be next on Stain's list of fakes whose "hypocrite" blood was to run the streets. As Aizawa had already violated the secrecy and revealed confidential information, he might as well go all the way through with it.
"Listen, Asui!" Aizawa ordered more firmly, giving up any prudence or restraint he had left. "I have to tell you something. Endeavour didn't save your three classmates when Stain attacked them. They saved themselves."
Asui was not so surprised, but acted like she was.
"How could they survive?" she asked.
"They won."
Being entrusted with such a heavyweight revelation proved Asui she had a crucial role to play. Aizawa then proceeded to explain, rapidly, for which reason the truth had been concealed from public knowledge.
"In other words, Stain is neither infallible nor invincible." Froppy guessed.
"Absolutely." Aizawa corroborated. "If I were the kind of irresponsible, thoughtless teacher who didn't care about the lives of his students, I'd have unleashed you all. Class 1-A vs the Hero Killer. You'd have won, eventually. However not without casualties. This is why we need to let Pro-Heroes do the job, and all stay alive to greet Mineta upon his return. Helping him heal from his psychological wounds shall be a fastidious task, as hard as fighting villains, but it'll be easier to achieve if no one gives his life for him."
It proved more convincing than he had hoped. Asui regained her calm and acquiesced to Aizawa's words. Somewhere below her chest, her heart wished Mineta was fondly attached to his classmates. They were his only semblance of a family. Abandoning him to rebuild his life on his own was a big no-no. Nothing in the world would dissuade her. Asui was up for it.
On the condition that she stayed alive. Aizawa never had been so right.
Stain and Mineta looked into each other's eyes.
Excitement overwhelmed the grape warrior's sense of prudence, as he faced what would be the fight of his life and his one shot at glory. His time had come. Redeemed villains did not deserve to meet their Maker at such young age. Putting them out of harm's way was a priority. Although Mineta would rather have fought alone, without an environment or other civilians to take into consideration. He was no Midoriya, whom he knew had taken on Nighteye – may his soul rest in peace - without damaging a single of the hundreds of All Might paintings in his office.
As for Stain, being interrupted by an ugly ankle-biter with the unbearable, high-pitched voice of a spoiled princess felt like pebbles in the shoe. However, something aroused Stain's curiosity. Not only this never-seen-before sticky whip, but mostly, the absence of fear in the grape's eyes. All the more so as Mineta's arms were now folded into his back, dropping the sticky rope on the ground as it naturally dissolved. It appeared the boy was squeezing something tightly in the palm of his hands, but didn't want it to be shown.
What a weird way to engage an enemy.
"Answer my question and you won't suffer too much." Stain asked, never to repeat himself.
"Let them go." Mineta hedged to provoke him, giving Gentle and La Brava a head nod.
Stain did not appreciate the goading and groaned in anger, all the while taking a look at his crippled victims on the ground, to check if they and the grape boy were related in some way. Mineta took advantage of this distraction to turn over and throw a ball – the one he was carrying in his hands – at an electrical cabinet close to his position.
The Hero Killer then rushed forward and pounced on him, with the intention to cut his left arm for his lack of respect. The daggers hung to his back behind the cape would do the job.
Mineta had been expecting such a move and the bait worked perfectly. Right when a running Stain reached his position, an explosion over the cabinet suddenly deactivated the lighting system, and the whole ground was plunged into blackness. It took barely a couple of seconds for the auxiliary power unit to turn on the red lights above emergency doors, but it fitted sufficiently with Mineta's plan.
In the now half-lighted basement, Mineta dodged a full series of cuts and strikes - mentally pretending to be Dark Shadow as a psychological trick to find his way in the dark.
To his own surprise, the boy's reflexes were enhanced to their top-level and getting at him wasn't so easy. Mineta was small, his body offered little possibility of gripping him - even less hitting factors - and his so-called cowardly proneness predisposed him to dodging skills. Not only did he avoid death with disconcerting easiness, but he even returned the hits with a string of punches of moderate intensity. Nothing too bad for Stain's muscular body, but being delivered blows without being able to return the favor felt odd. Mineta was playing for his life, with nothing much to lose trying new things just for fun.
The Hero Killer was impressed at how nimbly his opponent defended himself. His suspicions were about to be confirmed. Killing, or messing up too badly with this mysterious aggressor without proper knowledge about him was absurd. Despite his bloodlust and unshakable convictions, uselessly getting the floor dirty with corpses deterred him.
Upset by this fruitless fight of attrition, Stain nonetheless saw a shadow-like Mineta pulling off a ball-shaped part of his upper skull in the dark. First clue of the day.
He focused back on his enemy and went for his head. As he had foreseen, the sphere grew back instantly when they were pulled off. Though he failed to hit him, a detail caught his attention: Mineta's skull was bleeding. It was a normal side effect of such a Quirk, although Stain thought he had – somehow - successfully injured him despite missing target.
Besides, he did not immediately notice that the iron of his dagger was immaculate. Not before he licked it, found it tasteless and saw the lack of blood on it. As long as there is blood I can suck, it is all that matters. You are doomed, boy.
Problem is, Stain did not actually wish to wound him. As a consequence of his misjudgment and ignorance of Mineta's Quirk, he switched to plan B: forcing his indomitable will on the grape enemy, the way he had on Endeavour and other Pro-Hero to strike them with fear. It seemed to work and Mineta pressed his back against a wall, paralysis visible in his goggling eyes.
"Children should obey and do as they are told; boys of your generation grew way too accustomed to arrogance." Stain told him off, the memories of Iida, Midoriya and Todoroki in mind. "I asked you a question, kid. Answer me."
Unbeknown to him, his murderous aura failed to impress, as the boy was not afraid to lose a life he despised. Mineta just was a good actor, and a brilliant replier with a gift of gab.
"Adults like you should not kill people. And I receive no orders from a villain."
Growing frustrated, Stain drew a second dagger, crossed the two in front of him and prepared himself to go for Mineta's throat. With his immense, unmatched speed, the boy had already lost.
"Make good use of your sharp tongue before I cut it. Unless you'd rather choose death?"
"You have yet to catch me and I'm getting bored." Mineta replied while moving half-a-meter forward, away from the wall.
His cheekiness got the better of Stain's patience. You fool, do you realize who you're talking to?
The Hero Killer felt like the moment to demonstrate his supremacy in speediness had come.
He charged himself up with strengths, pumping the brute energy right into his legs. As he got ready for a high-speed super-attack, he examined Mineta's physical features and concluded that victory was his. The boy would be down before taking a second step. If a previous adversary of fire and ice had failed to land a single strike on him, along with U.A.'s fastest student and the hardest-hitting one not doing any better, the grape-looking brat did not stand a chance.
"Your previous blows were ridiculously weak. Let me show you how to actually hurt an enemy."
"Go ahead, smooth talker!"
Stain was to put his threat into action - with immediate effect - when a problem got between him and his death wish, running interference before he could implement it.
However strong his drive to rush in was, his legs were rebelling and he remained still. What kind of diabolicalness is this?
Back when darkness had briefly invaded the place, blinding them both, Mineta had randomly scattered as many of his balls as he could – hence the overused Quirk turning his skull bloody. Despite the emergency roof lights having rapidly been turned on, they only provided minimum visibility and a near-opaque shadow blanketed the floor – making even the biggest rock invisible. Stain had walked on a sphere concealed by the treacherous low mist of darkness, and he was caught with his two feet stuck to the concrete ground.
Stain looked at what was going on down below, lowering his guard. He was too distracted by this unanticipated trap to react on time, when the boy delivered an unlooked-for yet powerful kick to the jaw, which snatched and blew two bloody teeth from his mouth. The boy then bounced back and flipped his way away to a safe distance, in a totally improvised feat of acrobatics.
Landing on his feet like a cat, he challenged Stain with his two fists standing on guard.
"How about this one?" Mineta defied him with renewed brazenness, focusing his eyes on Stain's legs like they were future war trophies. "Make good use of your leopard paws before they get all sticky-icky with these little wonders of mine!" he then gloated, both his hands juggling with a bunch of balls. "Unless you'd rather choose surrender?"
Stain's tactical intellect came alive and boiled in excitement, in the face of this new rival in scheming brilliant strategies. Mineta had obviously calculated his every move, from the power blackout to the deceitful adhesive ground. Even his fear of Stain's superiority had been staged, and the Hero Killer's mind-freezing aura was no match for the boy's stubborn nonchalance. Were there other traps set for him? Other distractions in store? Various technics and tricks to make him believe Mineta was getting flustered, only to stab him from the blue?
All of the above could be true and it aroused him. Fascinating. Show me what you've got.
A silent, nerve-wracking staring contest ensued. Stain's anger shot up, all the while feeling his appetite for challenge skyrocket.
"By the way, I come from U.A. High School." Mineta eventually answered his first question.
No more was needed for Stain's glance to go up in flames of hatred. He thought back on this "modern times hero factory" of a hero school – a model of wage-earning, notoriety-craving State employees mistaking themselves for celebrities. The Hero Killer knew Mineta probably was no different from these salaried divas.
Except, maybe, if his decision to save villains stemmed from selflessness.
"Look at you! Yet another undeserving hero-wannabe!" Stain vociferated more evilly.
His eyes challenged Mineta into replying with his guts. His words would decisively matter.
"Well, fancy that: I am no more hero than Gentle is a villain. But if you insist, I'll put my suit back on just for you, and smile like a bitch without paying All Might ANY royalties."
"Do as you wish, fake. You won't mind if I deal with them first?"
The smell of trouble soared once again. If they felt like fighting, these two warriors of different sizes might as well go for it. For all they cared, Gentle and La Brava were no longer afraid. As long as their graceful love made it to the hereafter and beyond, they could perish a thousand times.
"Leave them out of this." Mineta reaffirmed his opposition. "It's between you and me, now."
"Wait for your turn. They deserve to die."
"Not as much as I do."
Mineta now had his full attention. Something to confess? Stain surmised.
Stain sheathed his bladed weapons to observe a truce. Mineta made good use of this time out to tell his story, thoroughly explain who he was, describe what his problems were, go back through time and give full details of his journey to meet Stain almost by accident.
"I want you to confront me, fight me by force of Quirks, judge me with your own criteria and content for who's got the best convictions. If you deem me an unworthy hero who needs to die, then so be it. You will enjoy full permission to take my life…only if you let them go. And if your blades can make it to my vital organs."
A challenge for a challenge. Stain's mind burned up.
"You know it is a possibility I can't afford." he emotionlessly said.
"Hell, yes you can! All it takes is a bit of resolve. Isn't that what you're best at?"
Ignoring his incitements, Stain drew one of his throwing knives and took aim at Gentle. He did not throw it. Turning over to Mineta, to check if his provocation had triggered a response from a child who aspired to outsmart him, he was awestruck to hear the crack of another whip. Mineta had built in a fistful of seconds. Impressive.
"Should you try to harm a single hair on their head, be prepared for quite a tumultuous night!" Mineta sneered sadistically, flogging the air as lecherously as Midnight would have.
"Is that so?"
"I told you already, you deaf old pal. I am no longer a hero. Nothing can stop me now. No creeds, no rules, no codes. If I want to, I can hurt you really, really, really fucking bad!"
Mineta sounded all the more serious as he actually would deign to give it his all. His situation was as cruel as it was ambivalent.
At this stage, his survival was something of a miracle. Soon, luck would die out and so would he. If there was to be a last stand, no punches would be pulled. Mineta had been the prisoner of himself for all his life, only to be freed upon meeting its end. He would leave this world with style, especially if it rhymed with being badass. All these things fiercely repressed deep inside as far as his subconscious, the ferocious crackdown on his feelings and the crushed revolt attempts by his conscience…they all became one. His self-hatred, his anger at the world, his sadness and sullenness, his repulsion for Stain…gathered into one ardent flame bursting from his eyes, where the expression of a life's worth of frustration assembled.
The boy cried. Just a single tear per eye. The same threatening flames burned up with unprecedented fury, casting a furious, revengeful aura in the vicinity. Stain instantly backed off with his freed feet, realizing in the process that the adhesive properties of Mineta's balls suffered a time limitation. It only came as secondary details, as the Hero Killer had discovered the perfect mirror to find out how it felt to be returned the same paralyzing look of determination.
It was scary. And it was magnificent. The enemy of a lifetime was here, waiting for him. A dangerous foe who would put his determination to the test.
Therefore, it no longer was just a question of wiping scum of the deepest dye off the surface of the Earth. From this moment, determination took precedence. His against Mineta's.
"Go." he ordered Gentle Criminal and La Brava, consequently facing up to Mineta. "Someone with such amount of courage and resolution deserves to have his wish granted. You, kid, could sacrifice your life for whatever you think is worth it. Most heroes out there would just call reinforcements to stay alive and live on to sign autographs. Not you."
Instead of attacking him straight away, Stain went for his katana, removed it from the wall it was stuck in, made a mental note to remind himself of using all his gear. Following his evasion, gathering his equipment and replacing the missing parts had taken him quite an amount of time. Being able to use it all, unlimitedly, felt like the best reward to his efforts ever.
In his mind, he pictured the hardest boss he had ever fought so far, and gave Mineta the look of a game master.
"First test passed. Next one starts now."