Minato-ku Tokyo Special Ward, Sunday evening, 07:00 p.m.
A compact crowd of panicked pedestrians flooded the streets, near Midoriya and Shinso's patrolling position. In a matter of minutes, the city looked like a nuclear strike was imminent, with unrests running rampant everywhere.
"Looks, it's Hawks!"
The Wing Hero flew right above them, escorted by a small task force of Pro-Heroes, heading north. Two seconds after spotting him, they could also make out Mt. Lady's giant-sized head protruding above the roofs from behind a line of buildings, as she fought her way to some enemy-infested backstreets alongside teammates from the Lurkers. Explosions and banging noises were heard all over town, yellowish flashes from street fires lit up the city skyline, weaponry shots rang out and the most dangerous Quirks rioted for an all-you-can-unleash rampaging spree.
Chaos was enjoying its night of glory, as multiple clusters of villains, petty gangs and maddened thugs wreaked havoc across the Japanese capital.
Reminds me of that day Stain and the League launched simultaneous attacks! Midoriya recalled with a dash of anguish darkening his heart. That was scary.
The two boys jumped through hoops to have one of the panicked pedestrians slow down, stop screaming, catch his breath and explain what this fuss was about. Upon learning the truth, that Stain was out and bad people stirred up trouble in his honor, their first reaction – beside fright and apprehension - was to instinctively ask if anyone was in immediate danger.
"I don't really know…" the man stammered. "All I can tell you is that Stain is after someone."
"Would you please mind being more specific?" Shinso insisted.
"He's been chasing him through the whole district for a while, now. I think it was a little guy…maybe a girl, I can't tell. Even Stain was barely recognizable. He or she was running so fast Stain had a hard time catching up!"
They had quite a bad feeling about it.
"Sir…" Midoryia tried to keep his cool. "We really need you to be more precise!"
"Why do you keep asking me? I don't know at all!" anxiety had him scream irritatingly. "He was…like, you know, a kind of…weird-looking child or something, hard to say. About this size…" he specified, his flat hand floating about a meter above the ground. "And there were…some kind of balloons on his head, and he was purple, and…damn it, I don't remember! Now get out of my way, the Hero Killer is coming!"
He took to his heels. No more questions, no more answers. Wouldn't be needed anyway.
Having recognized the description of their lost schoolmate, the teenage questioners rushed forward – against the flow of fearful runners – and set forth to finish their mission on the battlefield. For Shinso, it was like launching himself into a perilous journey to the unknown, completely unprepared. For Midoriya, a casual intervention in a clash zone, where old foes and a sizeable challenge awaited. For both, it means saving someone they owed it to.
Vibrations of a million footsteps and the noisy upheaval covered up the sounds of their phones. Distracted as they were, focused on their objective, they missed more calls.
"Won't you answer me, goddamn it?"
The more Aizawa got Midoriya's voice mail, the more he fulminated against his phone. Curse me for not having foreseen the obvious!
Midoriya roaming free in the wild often foreshadowed a disaster. On the side of villains.
"Aizawa-sensei!" Asui suddenly screamed in a horrified voice.
She had received a call as well, to which she had replied, much to her dismay. Koda's spying bird had spotted a high-speed pursuit throughout buildings. Mineta climbing them with his sticky balls, dodging dozens of blade cuts. Stain giving all he had to hit him, failing so but not giving up.
At some point or another, the better-trained villain would carry it off.
Both the Frog Hero and her teacher seemed mentally cornered, unable to keep calm as though events were turning against them. To make matters more distressing, several Pro-Heroes briefly appeared in their line of vision. Mirk, Best Jeanist, Ryukyu or Gang Orca; numerous were the elite troops to roam the city-turned-battlefront as they repelled attacks, flushed their preys out of hiding, and fought them. It really was a serious business.
"We should go right away and help him before it's too late. It is our hero duty, kero!"
In Asui's head, waiting time was over. The simple memory of the unusual things that had occurred so far justified this intervention. Risking her life no longer posed an issue. Pro-Heroes would arrive soon anyway, once they'd be done dealing with the insurrectionist villain skirmishes. The whole team would prevail…hopefully.
"That's a no, Asui. We need to protect our lives first." Aizawa stuck to his decision.
The teacher's defeated, broken expression of sadness spoke for him. As if he had already been conquered by the fact that Mineta was already dead and lost. However, it would not last.
When Aizawa walked away, expecting his student to follow him docilely as he got ready to return to the Heights Alliance, Asui demanded he turned back at once, with an impetuous, domineering tone. As he did so to cast a sidelong glance of interrogation, Eraserhead saw Froppy looking dead-serious and knitting her brown. Upon noticing she finally had his attention, Froppy turned off her phone, cutting communications with Koda.
Whatever she had to say was not to fall on any ears.
"What's got into you, Asui? Disobeying ord–"
"Stain has been defeated once, by three of your students. It can happen again."
She knew it from the secret Aizawa had entrusted her with. Koda was not supposed to know.
"You know Stain is a very dangerous villain, nothing like you've ever seen before!"
"I know he has been defeated. It is enough, kero."
Further trying to convince her otherwise, or coercing her into giving up her wishful hopes by means of authority, would not change her mind at all.
She, Asui Tsuyu, the only student who had categorically opposed Bakugo's rescue operation by the class - on the grounds that it broke rules and was an act of selfishness no different than a villain's. She now rebelled against her teacher and the rules she used to defend, to save someone she would once dislike and be the victim of, only to have a change of heart and grow attached to him. Aizawa only had glossed over the surface of his students' true personas. Still much to learn.
"Here's my student card. I agree to give it back." she showed and handed it to Aizawa. "I know you already have Mineta's, and I kindly ask you to keep the two together. Once I find him, dead or alive, he won't be alone anymore. Two student cards, two student corpses…or beating heart. As long as we're together, I don't mind either outcome."
She insistently waved the card for the teacher to take, but he softly pushed her hand back.
"Put that away. It is not the best weapon of choice for combat."
Her eyes popped in amazement, without for all that hiding her inability to grasp Aizawa's volatile stance. The latter crouched yet another time, staring at her intensely.
"It seems time has come for breaking more seals of confession. One more won't hurt." he stated in a cryptic tone. "I have another reason to follow you into battle and stand up to Stain."
Direct answers had proven to alleviate the Frog Hero's scruples when she had some. It was plenty enough for Asui to revert back to her levelheaded, deadpan self.
"I guess it is because you can't reach Midoriya, that he is already en route to tackle Stain himself and you need to save him too, kero."
Was Midoriya or Stain in need to be saved? Doubt was permissible.
Asui had a sense of humor all her own, although the latest touch of it left Aizawa thinking it was out of place. Or had she actually believed her words and spoken with outspokenness? So typical of her. Good thing to know good old Froppy was back.
"Actually…it is another reason. Far more incongruous and far above suspicion. You would not believe me and we don't quite have the time for this. If you want to know, you better never mention what just happened to anyone. And survive this adventure."
He winked knowingly, giving relief to her anxiety. To see Mineta make it out alive, I will.
Yes, Mineta was acting like a coward and Stain hated it, hence empowering his bloodlust. And no, the Hero Killer was no longer a treat to anyone but the grape boy. Fifty-fifty.
Running was the option he had opted for, as it was the one with the highest life expectancy. It wouldn't change much about his destiny, of which the expiry date was a question of minutes. Meeting deadlines never had been Mineta's strongest feature anyway.
It had nothing to do with punctuality. The timorous boy was a champion in leaving early…
Minutes before.
Stain got down to brass tacks, throwing himself into the fray like a murderous psychopath, and unleashing his deadliest blows at Mineta.
The excited dwarf felt honored, even more flattered to be held in such high "esteem". A top-of-the-range slaughterer used state-of-the-art weaponry to finish off a one-meter-high provocative vine, after all. His death – indeed – would be rapid and not so painful.
He managed to avoid more hits, after a fashion. Despite the horrendous pain his Quirk made him endure, the balls kept coming off. The clever boy spared no effort, tossing them at most surfaces within throwing reach to set more traps.
"Say hello to my Mineta's ample Mineta-balls!"
He even went so far as sticking some to his own body, thus forcing Stain to aim like a robot with the vision of an eagle, to land a perfect strike with millimeter precision. Otherwise, his katana blade would get stuck and disabled, losing him a valuable asset.
For a while, Stain mumbled along with great difficulty. Mineta was stronger, faster, livelier and more agile than in training. His "Grape-Pinky Combo Mineta-Bounce" Super Move came out handy. Loading his legs with as much force as he could, he jumped toward the spheres he had previously laid down. Bouncing from one to the next, he gained momentum and flew through the basement like a meteorite. The bullet boy struck his enemy several times and landed well-felt blows, the power of which was strongly increased by an exponential factor due to his great speediness. Stain lost precious time trying to read his movements.
Meanwhile, Gentle and La Brava watched incredulously. Mineta's furious speed gave them stomach upsets. It felt worse than epileptic seizures.
Usually capable of improvising creative, if not competent strategies to achieve victory, Mineta found himself unable to come up with a plan. Nothing quite conclusive, except some lame-sounding jokes and snarky comments, which were quick to bore an already weary Stain to annoyance. Aside from a pathetic attempt to send him to sleep, these served no purpose. Excitement was at fault. This feeling crippled him in the heat of the action, for he never had experienced anything similar in combat.
Not even his perverted excitement, back when he still was an "Avatar of pure Lust" on Aizawa's admission, paralleled his infinitely more honorable ardor of battle. Let's cut to the chase and face the truth... Mineta pondered. I'm having so much more fun! It is more than I expected. Blame my stupid-ass fear for distorting forecasts…
Stain gave everything he had, so did the former King of Sexual Maniacs.
In the long run however, danger was real and losing almost inevitable. Stain benefited from an unrivaled intellect, an incredible reaction time and a formidable speed himself. In a matter of intense minutes of exploiting his analytical skills, he worked Mineta's Quirk out and deduced how to best beat him at his own game.
The boy also enjoyed a considerable sense of analysis – regularly changing his pouncing direction and strategies – but he lacked Stain's considerably enhanced physical strength.
At one point, the unpredictable villain perfectly sliced through a ball. As long as he struck with enough power and speediness, Stain could sever any of the sticky spheres without disabling his katana. Mineta subsequently adapted his fighting style, adopting a vertical approach: he simultaneously threw balls at Stain, covering every area of his body – from head to toe. His attacks were messy, coarse and unbalanced. They looked closer to a ham-fisted pile of nonaligned balls, which spread randomly in the air like a stack of leaves scattered by the wind. It was ugly to die for, but still obliged Stain to spend most of his time cutting them before they reach him.
The bold strategy paid off, giving the grape boy enough time to make an escape. Skedaddling like a coward is a thing I've always done correctly. Shit…I don't have a choice!
The underground basement was too small to run a marathon without getting caught. Another major issue remained: Gentle Criminal and la Brava had not cleared out yet. The man with an elegant mustache had fainted in exhaustion. His female partner was near equally weakened. Her love for Gentle was enough to resist fatigue and protect him for all it was, but the reanimating process would take time.
Mineta had to get the Hero Killer away and keep him off them. It is all for the best. For once, me chickening out will save lives. I should get a prize for pioneering this method and patent it!
He held up Stain with more balls and Grape Rushed toward him one last time. His enemy pointed his katana at him, as he saw the boy swooping on him in a straight line. Right before Stain's weapon impaled him, Mineta unpredictably steered on his left and turned off to an exit door.
Enraged, Stain went after him without turning back. Rescue mission accomplished.
Mineta climbed up and down buildings roofs, chimneys, ducts and electrical facilities relentlessly, in the recently-fallen night. His survival was at stake. The slightest blunder could cost him his life, which he gambled at any action taken. Use-by date was close.
"My appreciation of your efforts was short-lived." Stain commented severely, jumping above a power line in Mineta's direction. "The principles and willpower I saw in you are long gone. What do you expect to accomplish if you conduct yourself like a weak one? You seem to wield your power only to run away like a coward. It makes you nothing but another sham."
"Absolutely. Because I am one. Thank you, Doctor Know-it-all." the boy replied heartlessly, all the while climbing up a wall. "That's what people say and think. They were right."
"Forget about the opinions of ignorants, try taking a look at yourself and review your actions." Stain advised, landing cuts on the concrete below Mineta's feet at the same time. "You speak like you were born without convictions, but where are your objectives? Acting out of nothing, with just chaos as the little voice inside…makes you undeserving of the title for those who perform truly great accomplishments!" he added, barely dodging both a powerful low-kick and falling balls. "Trapped as you are in a life of lies, and drowned in your own hesitations, it is a shame to call you an enemy while you could still rectify it. Why don't you wake up?"
Mineta reached an elevated position at the top of another building, and then used his Super Grape Rush to launch a handful of spheres. It forced Stain to keep distant, palliating for Mineta's shortness of breath, and granting him time to clear off with full lungs.
"I didn't know you were a psychologist!" he sarcastically faked surprise. "I hope it's free."
But he remembered what the videos showed. That Stain had not only inspired criminals into action and forced heroes to reconsider their beliefs, but he also – and more importantly – had spared the lives of those deemed worthy of living, and given advice to his esteemed enemies.
Had a part of Stain's psyche enough esteem for the grape boy to reward him with wisdom? Stain's mental stability – stories of split-personality disorders or similar things - had been intensely debated on the news. Mineta only held basic information, having more learned about the Hero Killer's chaotic personality in a single night.
"Stop turning your back on me!" Stain enraged, bouncing around air ducts and antennas to run after the grape boy. "I demand you face me and show me how determined you are. Fight me, Unknown U.A. Student, or be weeded out in my purge."
"I'd rather d…" Mineta was about to say in the middle of another Grape Rush, repelling Stain and rushing past him. Dang it, I'm captain-obviousing myself here.
"If that's what you want, you are the furthest thing from a worthy opponent and I shall continue my work."
Mineta had been badly waiting for an occasion to tease his enemy. Recalling what Stain had yelled to Endeavour right before falling unconscious, he reinterpreted these legendary words to suit his style.
"If I don't fix it…if someone isn't…stained with my big sticky balls! If perverts are not restored…Come! Just try me, you grape juice addict! The only one allowed to kill me is…Mt. Lady, a true hero!" he declared epically, laughing aloud the second after whilst pantomiming gross hands groping a generous pair of breasts. "Just kiddin'. The one who can make me kick the bucket…his name, it's "I-don't-give-a-fuck-just-come-and-get-me-already". In silence, please. People are sleeping."
The chase went on.
Over Mineta's body, the balls he had stuck to himself as a makeshift shield slowly started to come off, detach and melt away. He had been unable to do it himself all that time, due to not wanting to tear his civilian clothes in the process and making a laughing stock of himself. Only those stuck to his bare skin, immune to stickiness, he had removed.
Replacing them took time, as the high winds slapping his skin – the speedier he ran – rendered the task more time-consuming. Besides, without his "Gloves that Plucked", picking a sticky ball with his bare hands felt less comfortable. Countless elements, such as the sweat on his skin, nervous shaking, minor bleeding or potential smudges from wounds, could turn hazardous or deadly if they caused him to miss a shot or loss momentum.
I miss my equipment! he melancholically reminisced, aware that it permanently belonged in the past. Even looking like a baby boy…
Stain would not let the fleeing grape out of his sight until it fell dead. As he followed him very closely in the streets, up buildings and above roofs, the Hero Killer's level of adrenaline soared. Never had he thought pursuing a coward would have felt so entertaining - it nearly had him forget what his goal was and how serious it should be.
The boy also had his fair share of insightful realizations about himself. Mineta was a fast runner. He had involuntarily developed this ability, by dint of constantly rushing to the exit when life tried him. Running for his life impulsively whenever the opportunity presented itself, whining in fear in moments of great stress, losing his temper in highly disadvantageous situations, freaking out to the point of infamy…what had it served for?
He had the answer: Mineta mastered the art of avoidance, evasion and equivocation. And he did it with style, having chosen the deadliest criminal ever to put his skills into practice.
Nevertheless, he was in quite a predicament. Stain was on his tail and would never let go of him. The gap was closing. His legs tired themselves out. His enemy's infuriated comments reached his ears. He didn't have a choice but to flee…again.
"How long are you going to run, Fake? This is not the hero I met down there. Don't you make me regret leaving two unworthy villains behind just to play tag with you!"
His agonizing lungs burned harder when the grape boy attempted to give him short shrift.
"When I told you…*gasping*…that I was no hero…*gasping*…which part of that did you not understand? I thought we were speaking…the same language!" he wheezed noisily, his trachea set ablaze. "So you better listen to me now, you badly-burned used toilet roll face! I…*gasping*…am not a fucking hero! Stop treating me as such…and just kill me already! When I said…*gasping*…that I was getting bored…*gasping*…I was not kidding!"
Stain became more angered, ferociously speeding up but still failing to catch up.
On Mineta's side, apart from his exhausted heart, things were not so bad. When faced with such a monster of power and precision, most would have wet themselves…with various bodily fluids, including blood. Adrenaline gave the boy the sensation he could sprout wings and fly above all his problems in life. At the height of fear, he was having a ball in this be-all and end-all of epicness.
Surprised at his performance, he pictured himself on Iida, Midoriya and Bakugo's side as a forth competitor. Only temporarily. I really can't hold a candle to them! That was foolish of me to once pretend otherwise…
It absolutely wasn't the appropriate time for this. Definitely not.
Just this once would hurt – it was his last anyway – Mineta thought back on his life as a student. The eccentric strategist in him drew a parallel with his many harebrained schemes to spy on girls. On these occasions to satisfy Little Mineta's fancies, he had felt the exact same pleasure to dive into a dangerous adventure. Mineta the Daredevil, a man of taste for danger and risk-taking tendencies. Regardless of the aftermath – a painful defeat – he had rebooted the system and restarted games after games.
But…what would have he done, had one of his plans actually succeeded 'till the very end? He didn't know. Crap, I really don't!
Was it really his intention to see it through? Discover naked girls' bodies and enjoy himself. So what? Alright then…but what was next?
He did not know. He did not know what he would have done with these naked bodies. Dirty thoughts? A screen with a good internet connection and a working VPN to bypass Parental Control was enough. Dirty things? Oh god please, I don't even know how!
He really didn't. How to make love, how to have sex – from foreplay to orgasm. Even simple things like flirting, seducing, kissing, fondling, touching, rubbing. Not as a rude groper, but as a delicate touchy-feely gentleman. He knew nothing, except that it wasn't a goal in itself.
How far could one go, before he bored himself and grew fed up with the void after the completion of this final objective, was the real issue.
Becoming cool…touching a girl's body…acquiring a reputation thanks to his status as a hero…carving out a niche for himself in good company…going out on patrol with a lady friend…burying his virginity…racking up notches on his bedpost while singing "Thank U, Next!"
Okay, that was fun. And when it'd be all over, what? He'd get all he wanted, and then what? He would get a promise to live happily ever after, to which he'd ask: "For what reason?"
Nothing. It was nothing.
"I understand now. All I ever wanted…was to give myself a reason to be. Something to live for, to stimulate me…and forget how miserable I was." Mineta murmured for himself, his motion speed engulfing the tears. "What I craved for…going on an adventure to make up for the lost time…The emotional, moral and relational void that always kept me at a distance from girls…from women…I wanted to fill it. This stupid, senseless behavior of mine…it all but served as a coverall to fill in the vacuum. Smoke and mirrors, dust in my own eyes, smokescreens. Hocus-pocus, motherfuckers! I camouflaged the problem, because I couldn't watch. I was wearing a mask. I bandaged my wounds with salt underneath, it became contaminated…until the infection was irreversible, incurable. Past this breaking point, the non-return one, I turned into a zombie…a pervert zombie."
Had he pushed forward on this path – scheme after scheme – Mineta would have hit a stone wall. In his pursuit of such an empty ideal, his hollow heart was headed for a bitter disappointment. His thoughts drifted again and again. He went back to that funny session when Class 1-A students had chosen their hero names, under Midnight's supervision.
Things hadn't been so great at the beginning. Only a few glitches and bumps taken by the firsts to be called to the board, like Ashido's unappealing "Alien Queen" or the laughable "Can't Stop Twinkling" from Aoyama, the class's frenchiest dude. Even Bakugo – aka "Lord Explosion Murder" – had given them more good laughs than all of Mineta's salacious, shittiest jokes altogether.
The worse of which was the name Mineta had selected for himself. Fresh-Picked Hero…more like Fresh-PICKED-ON Hero! Would have suited me well in middle school and before, even at home.
Even alternate names meant for parody, such as "Grape Britain" or "Atomic Head", sounded funnier to pronounce and fairer to bear. With Mineta's forgettable talking time fading to silence, the most uninteresting part stopped here.
Then came Asui to change the mood and bring smiles back.
A Frog Girl, whose curves were not as sensuous or bulky as Yaoyorozu's, but who easily topped Mineta's ranking of the girls he enjoyed the most. Not only was she beautiful and attractive, but her global benevolent yet levelheaded behavior, kindness at heart and unconditional friendship for everybody in the class – the less deserving too – elevated her to an unquestionable first place.
Everybody loved her for only good reasons.
She had been the one to clear the air and restore a more positive atmosphere, by being first to come out with a truly inspiring, stylish hero name and becoming Froppy - to universal praise. Just because she was naturally cool. Like her person as a whole. If it still were up to Mineta, he would more than willfully turn back the hands of time, erase his past mistake and fall in love with her.
For he actually was in love, in a way, somewhere in his broken heart. The part of him that watched beyond the sexy curves and looking into one's true personality.
Mineta remembered every second of this great moment in his short-lived hero life, when their future hero persona came to life by means of the verb. His favorite was Kirishima. Not because his tastes ran in that direction, but only thanks to Midnight's wise remark: electing a name as a nod to a personal idol was one thing, living up to the said idol was another.
Had Mineta what it took to pay tribute to Midnight and Mt. Lady, of whom he was the n°1 fan? No. For they never had justly been his idols, nothing but a gross and contemptible objectification of female body. A synonym for pain and remorse to his eyes, a sexual desire perverted by his own demons and the now-identified symptom of an ill-being he had failed to solve.
They were NOT his idols. Groping girls, making gross comments…were not what he was supposed to be. For lack of figuring it out on time, he would live with the certainty that he could have been a better person.
"Before becoming a hero, learn how to behave like a human being!" Kota Izumi, a six-year-old child about his size, had said with pure astuteness in his voice.
Mineta had caught its meaning way too late. Both boys had lost their parents in their youth and grudgingly lived to a more mature age, but the former had eventually healed from his bitterness and reconciled with heroes, while the latter had given Kota yet another reason to hate them.
Too bad for me! he concluded more tranquilly. It will be for another life.
He had been waiting for ages, for this moment when he would feel free. It had come.
The puzzle was complete, the boy having finally found the last piece. It all fell into place, clear as crystal. Mineta had achieved full comprehension of his life's most intimate, suppressed secrecies. He fully grasped the mystery of his infamous behavior, why and how things had become the way they were, what the consequence would be and what it meant for him. Mineta had chosen the wrong path; he'd pay for this with the price of his life. Justice was done.
Time was up. An honorable end awaited. I'm counting on you, Shinso. I have good hopes your goal in life shall be better than mine. My seat in Class 1-A is yours. Please, make proper use of it and–
"Fight or die, Fake!" Stain vociferated, brandishing his katana from behind.
Being stabbed in the back was nowhere near honorable as an ending to one's life.
Mineta awoke from his retrospective trance, back in the game as a solid-minded young man who had found solace in making peace with himself. Action and adventure were calling him back under the flag for one last row.
"As you wish, Hero Killer!" he counter-attacked, fending his sword off.
They fought more intensely for another couple of minutes, jumping from one building to the next. Mineta's defense proved effective for a while, but soon the odds clearly went rogue and turned in his disfavor. Feeling cornered, soon to be obliterated by metal, the resourceful boy found the time more than appropriate to play his joker. He tricked Stain into thinking he was running at him in a suicidal action, hence prompting his enemy to rush forward at full speed.
While intentionally luring him, Mineta proceeded to toss as many balls as he could, all around him. When the Hero Killer came close enough, one last ball was laid down before Mineta. The purple boy jumped on it, took aim, crushed the left side of the sphere under his shoes and bounced on it. Carried away by his own speediness, Stain missed him and nearly crashed into a chimney stack behind Mineta's previous position.
In the meantime, Mineta bounced off more tactically-dispatched balls, which – thanks to his well-thought calculations whilst tossing them around – propelled him further away from danger. Mathematics' theoretical usefulness in combat had been formally validated.
"If I don't get an honorable mention for that…I didn't even copy from Yao's test!"
From his safe distance, the grape-haired boy pulled a first trick from up his sleeve: a ball that he squeezed in the palm of his hand, until it sent pins and needles into his hand.
Stain was quick to turn back and make up for the lost distance, dashed toward his deceitful enemy with no intention to miss twice. Mineta patiently waited for him, running a huge risk not making any effort to dodge Stain's supersonic rush. When the Hero Killer entered the last centimeters of void before hitting the flesh, the boy followed through with his treacherous move. He engaged Stain in a full-frontal assault, successfully attached the shocking bomb to Stain's chest and jumped out of his way.
The boy fell to the ground. He got back up, but failed to avoid Stain's hefty hand seizing him under the chin and lifting him up. Mineta's entire past flashed in a split second and crossed before his eyes, as the ruthless villain strangled him mid-air and tightened his grip to break his neck. He would have succeeded, had a surge of electricity-like energy not suddenly electrocuted him on the spot. Stain barely managed to keep right and standing on his two feet, but the initial electrical shock left him in a state of sore numbness and faintness, struggling to get a hold of himself.
Freed from his hold, Mineta pulled himself out of Stain's reach. He resumed his frenzied scampering for safety. Behind him, a semi-conscious Stain pulled himself together in about ten seconds. Soon able to see again, he restarted his chase after Mineta and rejoined him.
"You just won't call it quits, will ya?" Mineta desperately cried, jumping and bouncing repeatedly to avoid Stain's stabs.
"Not before I find out what kind of guts you're made of!" Stain affirmed, slashing the air.
Stain delivered several kicks with his spiked boots, all the while making an attempt at stomping Mineta's body to the ground. A string of failures, missed by a hair.
"Should I take it literally or not?" Mineta asked ironically.
"Dead fakes don't think about such things."
Stain nearly stabbed Mineta following a skillful, hard-to-evade series of katana thrusts. But the boy once again made a flashy escape, bouncing his way out without a notch and landing a dynamic, surprise punch on Stain's flanks. The Hero Killer had the upper hand in terms of physical strength, but the dwarf's flexibility largely counterbalanced this unequal distribution of brute power. His light body was little affected by gravity and featured a low wind surface, even less catching options.
Hitting him was like trying to impale a flying wasp with a toothpick.
"I'm not dead yet!" Mineta affirmed boastfully, ducking more of Stain's slashing spree.
"You already belong in the past for me."
"So does your pride, Stain." Mineta mocked him. "The sting of failure to kill a hero apprentice like me in a single hit still hurts a lot in the present, huh? And your defeat lies in the future!"
He did not believe in his own words, but his sense of sarcasm did. Similarly, his face showed no sign of low morale, despite his self-censoring countenance hardly helping a "somebody help me!" from violating the confidentiality of his vocal cords and breaking through his sealed lips.
"Poetry won't save you, boy." Stain warned.
"But time will." Mineta argued. "If you keep waiting that much before making cold rotting flesh outta me, I may get my Hero License in the meantime and have it delivered in my coffin."
The mockery exhilarated Stain's desire to make the part with the coffin come true. Mineta did its utmost to elude the exponential rate of Stain's death blows and lose his pursuer behind, pushing the boundaries of imagination and ingenuity to their furthest.
Now that his electric balls were in the public eye, making the most of it became logical. Mineta demonstrated a limitless sense of creativity. In one instance, he managed to drop forcefully-clasped balls on an air duct Stain was walking on. The conductive surface delivered powerful shocks to the Hero Killer's legs, slowing down his advance but never stopping him, despite repeating the feat several times in a row with lukewarm results.
It moderately stunned and weakened Stain, crippling his sword dexterity, preventing him from aiming with precision and diminishing his immense speed. However, his wide array of skills featured a disproportionally short time of reactivity and quick-mindedness. He could learn so fast – adapting to any circumstances and breaking through the hardest obstacles - that Mineta could no longer rely on the environment to deceive his pursuer.
Fortunately, his sleeve was well stocked in.
Randomness of events became Mineta's unsuspected ally, when the boy accidentally dropped an electrified ball, which in turn bumped into another non-electrified ball. The two's collision against one another led to a fascinating contamination effect as the power supply spread, and the duo metamorphosed into twin batteries. To put it simply, an electrified ball touching another caused it to become electrified as well.
Ideas were quick to flourish. Let's try something. If I win an award for a groundbreaking technical invention, I want it delivered in my coffin too.
Whist running, Mineta assembled a longer version of his whip with more balls, one of them squeezed harder than the others. He finished it right on time, as Stain was gaining momentum and attacking from behind. The boy turned to face him, struck back with his sphere-made weapon and succeeded in wrapping it around Stain. The current instantly spread out sphere after sphere, stinging the villain as if he had been trapped in a jellyfish's tentacles. It temporarily incapacitated him, winning Mineta more of those precious seconds than he had bargained for, to widen the gap.
Twice an attempt, twice a failure to knock him out, but he was alive and ready for the next episode. Overflowing with energy, Mineta had enough power to land more blows in a close future. His self-destructiveness after years of abusive upbringing was being converted into formidable potential.
Where the hell are the other Pro-Heroes? he thought without impatience.
He needed help, almost as much as he wanted people to watch him. Otherwise, he probably wouldn't wish anyone to interfere. He didn't realize it, but hard-thought wishes generally attracted fulfillment at one point, and whilst he was racking his brain to stay alive, a tiny little light – up in the sky above him – flew closer to his position…
"Just in! A man thought to be none other than the infamous, recently-escaped criminal Stain, also known as the Hero Killer, has been spotted in a densely-populated Tokyo Ward (Minato-ku). As you can see it right now, he has engaged in close combat with an unnamed young boy, and seems to be also chasing after him with the intention to kill his target.
In the meantime, more attacks by isolated groups of villains were reported around and within the city center, and on the outskirts. Pro-Heroes in the vicinity have been put on high alert; they are already on their way to intercept Stain as we speak, although the outburst of violence currently reaching its peak might delay them.
And…oh wait! We've just been informed that the boy in question was Minoru Mineta, a fifteen-year-old student in Heroics from U.A. High School.
Stay tuned for more details as we cover this incredible high-speed chase live!"
Minato-ku Ward, Sunday evening.
The breaking news broadcast was now on every major screen around the city. Whoever still ignoring it was up to date henceforth. Among growing conversations, passion was the master word.
"Bro, who's that dude? I missed the announcement."
"A U.A. student, as it seems. Didn't know they accepted dwarfs."
"What's his hero name?"
"Dunno. He vaguely reminds me of that weird pervy boy from the Sports Festival…"
"I've never seen a Hero fight without his suit!"
"He's not fighting, he's running like a bat outta hell."
"Are you blind? That lil' guy's crazy as fuck! He kicked and punched Stain, like, a dozen times already, and he's still standing! What a man!"
"Looks more like an elementary school boy to me, but you're right…Oh! Look at that, it's amazing! Look at how he bounced off him! He's giving him a real thrashing. Look, look!"
"I saw, I saw…Oh my God, did he just tase him with a freakin' gutter?"
"Look at that katana, how can he dodge that? Stain's so quick…Total badass, my man!"
"Ooooh, shit's going down real quick! C'mon, smol dude. We're with you!"
"You can win, grapey! Give him hell, give him hell!"
"Yeah, that's me boi! Kick him in the balls!"
"Oh shit…Oh shit, oh shit, OH SHIT!"
"I can't take it anymore! The tension is killing me!"
"That's so nerve-racking, I'm on the edge of my fucking seat!"
People were all eyes, watching the spectacular crusade against the running vine with either curiosity, anxiety, passion or popcorn. Or all of them.
The crowd of grape supporters grew bigger and bigger. Among them, the Class 1-A students went intel-gathering. The highly-charged atmosphere promptly put them in the know.
"I just can't believe what I'm seeing!" Kaminari cried out hysterically. "Did he…steal my Quirk or what?"
They had just witnessed the boy energetically lashing out at Stain with his sphere-composed whip, the electric-blue color of which shined through the dark battlefield on the roofs.
The maddened boy fought like an expert cowboy, mastering a near-perfect handling of his multi-uses tool. From time to time, it served as a far west-like rope. Mineta smoothly hanged to most surfaces, edges and angles, making dexterous use of his environment to jump and climb at will. He was Tokyo's self-proclaimed Tarzan-boy, turning his lasso into a forest-like vine to swing his way across the urban jungle. Also the city's new masochist Boogeyman, as it appeared getting any closer to him had become impossible for Stain - without the boy either flogging him soundly or whipping his bladed weapons away.
Whatever secret power he had unlocked, it was no work of a third-party mentalist toying with his DNA from behind the scene. Mineta's potential had yet to be fully exposed; his freshly-invoked bravery came first, in this brand new step taken in putting all the cards on the table to wipe the slate clean, and be the man no one expected him to be.
"Does he even need to be saved?" Ashido wondered, humorously commenting Stain's predicament.
"I swear I will!" Iida promised out loud, the fresh evening air declining responsibility for his trembling lips. I once scolded you hard, hoping it would help you open your eyes… he recalled emotionally. When I join you against Stain, please don't make me close them!
All at the same time, a helicopter filled with journalists lighted up the premises where the duel was taking place. As they zoomed in, their spotlight tracked the two fighters down and enthralled, enthusiastic comments flew thick and fast – further captivating the audience.
Cheers of awe and encouragements rose from the densified masses of spectators, when the grape-haired boy performed an insanely spectacular feat of acrobatics: he successfully lassoed Stain's hands, snatching the katana off, and got through hand-to-hand tactical strikes one after the other. The same crowd yelled in trepidation and booed the Hero Killer, when the latter kicked Mineta while he was Grape Rushing on him. The screen then showed the predator picking up his weapons, his prey assembling another whip and the two renewing hostilities.
No peace treaty in sight. Fierce close-combat clashes coming one by one. Non-stop violence.
"I've never seen him like this, loaded for bear like a madman. What's got into him?"
The boy had radically changed, so had the context.
Once upon a time, a whiny pervert had proven too weak and helpless to win a basic, beginner-level brawl with villains on his own. He had made an enemy of most who unfortunately knew him. He had been powerless to stand for himself, unable to equalize the Quirk of a child, failing to keep his hands to himself, disappointing the community of heroes to the full extent, discrediting his scarce potential as a good person and making an indecent coward out of himself.
Once upon a time, Mineta became his very opposite. One day, he had seemed to completely give up on his right to live. The next day, he was fighting for this same entitlement, with little regard for this feeling of dread, which would formerly make him melt down and give up the cleanliness of his conscience. Once thrown off by the hardness of life, he would throw off the yoke of it.
Almost all Class 1-A was here. Save for Bakugo – who'd rather take on the problem individually – and Kirishima, prowling in Bakugo's shadow, but probably hiding somewhere to cry the crushing manliness out with tears of hope for his struggling comrade. He is fighting both his demons and society's worst plague live. Yesterday, he was fighting us. How stylish!
Rational-thinking Yaoyorozu eventually got her feet back on the ground.
"How can we get to him?" she asked.
Finding an answer was hard. Finding someone who would answer, even to say nothing worth noting down, was even harder. Almost everybody had sunk their captivated eyes into the giant screens, in a complete thrall as the courageous U.A. student made Stain's life hell and stayed cool in the face of the entire world. Would it look up for him in the end? Would it be a multi-faceted roller-coaster of drawn-out plot twists and unforeseen developments? Or would the boy suffer a slow burn by the hand of a stronger enemy, or ultimately die with style?
Possibly, possibly not.
"I'm trying to figure out where they could be. City's big; might take a while." Fumikage said.
His sentient shadow entity manifested itself, plunging his nocturnal eyes into the broadcasted images. With his darkness-friendly vision, he accurately probed the structural features of buildings in the fighters' surroundings. Anything, from an advertising billboard to a shop emblem, a familiar skyline or a recognizable frontage could be a potential clue worth analyzing. As long as the clashing fighters did not move into a floodlighted zone and scared Dark Shadow into retracting back into Fumikage's body, it remained within the valiant Jet-Black Hero's capabilities.
For the time being, his classmates got dressed into their suits ready for action – virtually no one of the screen-absorbed witnesses around paid attention, and it would not improve as the live combat was intensifying.
The boy vehemently stood his ground, switching between tactical retreats to instinctive counterattacks to keep his enemy busy. Last time we met, I did not consider running away as an option, Iida fretfully recalled. Should Mineta-kun prove me wrong, I would be the happiest man!
But he would not find out soon, as seconds afterward, the streets roared with discontent when the city ward was suddenly sent back to Stone Age.
"Holy crap, what the hell just happened? Bring the goddamn image back!"
"Power is out!"
"How is that even possible? What's the year again?"
"I think…the boy did it. He fucking did it!"
The public lighting system had been turned off, its cause arguably having something to do with a grapy killjoy. Any electricity-powered device connected to the network ceased to function. No more visual indications for Fumikage to read Mineta's location on the screens, but it didn't pose so much of a problem as he would not need them anymore.
"If Mineta actually caused the Minato Ward to go in the dark, he must be close to us. Before the screen was powered off, I recognized a high-rise building with plenty of glace panes in the background. I think it was the Might Tower, and I remember seeing them going that way." he focusedly spoke to anyone listening. "We need to get an overview to confirm my suspicions and start our searches."
The city's highest building
"Well done, Fumikage-kun!" Iida chop-lauded him. "Roppongi district, then. After you."
Without the city brightness to drain it out, Dark Shadow's strengths grew far greater, granting Fumikage the power to materialize wings and be first to take off. The Birdy Hero led both the way and the efforts to find Mineta safe and sound. Iida followed diligently with reborn hopefulness, running his engines at full throttle. Hang on, Mineta-kun. Class Rep is coming and he'll see you win.
Momentarily released from their pixel captivity, people eventually noticed what kind of budding celebrities had been walking among us, and were now acting seriously. As Class 1-A rose up in the air and took to the skies, hails and applause rang out.
"Save that for Mineta!" they collectively shouted.