Chapter Three: God Made the First Chronically Ill Because He Had to Nerf Him For the Safety of Everyone Else
The villains had hit Tokyo at nightfall. A gang of fifty had struck a bank, a jewelry store, and a boutique at the same time. Various metahuman abilities let them rip through the bank's metal door and load bag after bag of cash into their truck. A giggling woman walked out of the jewelry store draped in diamond necklaces.
The boutique was owned by an elderly woman who lived above it. After being woken by the noise, she'd wandered downstairs and quickly regretted it.
The villains had tied her up and deposited her in the corner, and now they argued about if they should kill her.
"I want at least one dead body on this trip," a muscular man growled. "We need to teach the damn normies to fear us." He threw his weight around as if he was the leader, though this group seemed like more of a disorganized mob.
A scrawny man clacked his long fingernails together. "But I want a test subject for my poisons!" Something green dripped down a nail.
A woman with a scar covering her face stuck her head into the shop. "I don't see the point in killing a civilian." But she didn't sound like she particularly cared, either. She grabbed some expensive perfume and left.
The police often didn't bother to reply to metahuman attacks. They were too outgunned and afraid. The shop owner could only pray for a quick death.
"How dare you abuse your powers? Release that woman immediately!"
The villains turned around.
A curly-haired man with red eyes stood in the doorway with his hands on his hips. He wore all black from his cape to his broad-brimmed hat. He had a golden belt and tall boots. A black mask around his eyes finished the costume. His grin looked slightly demented.
The shop owner failed to be reassured in the slightest.
"Are you one of those government heroes?" the leader demanded. "Traitors to your own kind, all of you—"
"I owe no allegiance to any government!" The question seemed to infuriate the white-haired stranger. "Vigilantes are far cooler, anyway. They're totally going to be sorry about rejecting me. Just wait and see."
The leader snorted. "A hero reject." He nudged his friend. "Look, I found the perfect test subject for your poisons."
The man with long fingernails lunged forward. The vigilante easily caught his wrist. Red light flashed.
The villain staggered backward, his nails shortened. He wailed, "My ability! It's gone!"
"Let that be a lesson to you," the vigilante proclaimed. Under his breath, he muttered something like, "Heh, I'm so cool."
The villains charged in a howling fury. Their cries drew the others from outside. Fifty villains with different powers came in a mass.
It was a massacre.
Within minutes, all the villains lay on the floor, moaning in pain and weeping about their lost powers.
The self-proclaimed leader, who'd made a point of staying in the back, now shook with terror. He reached for the bound shop owner. "If you value this woman's life, then—"
He never got a chance to finish. The vigilante launched himself across the room in a blast of air. With his bare hands, he snapped both of the villain's arms, then tossed him aside.
The vigilante laughed in an oddly evil fashion. Turning to the shop owner, he pulled out his wallet and wrote a huge check. "My apologies for the damage to your shop, ma'am. Please, accept this compensation." His face had warped into a truly feral grin. Blood dripped out of the corner of his mouth where he'd bitten someone's throat.
The shop owner screamed, "Monster!" and ran upstairs as fast as her elderly legs would carry her.
The vigilante stared after her. "Is it something on my face?" On his way out, he walked into the doorframe. "Ow! Stupid tall brother!"
Yuuto loved being healthy. He loved being able to run and jump without nagging pain in the back of his lungs. He loved not having to calculate out how long he could keep moving before he'd collapse. He loved having money to throw around. Most of all, he loved having power.
The metahuman abilities hummed under his skin, begging and pleading to be used. It felt like an ants' nest living inside his chest—yet he loved it. He'd always been a fan of superpowers, and now he couldn't resist their siren call. He wanted to use each one as much as they wanted to come out.
With one power, he blocked the water rising out from the river. Using another ability, he built up a wall to stop the flooding. As the wall finished, he leapt forward and snagged a child out from the water.
When he deposited the boy on the bank, the parents fell all over themselves thanking him.
Finally, someone was happy to see him. People kept pointing and screaming everywhere he went. Even after he'd wiped the blood off his face!
He interrupted the babbling parents. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but another crisis requires my attention. You know how it is in the hero business. Here, have some money, just because." He tossed some more bills, winked in what he imagined to be a cool manner, then took off with a blast of air.
With his enhanced senses, he'd overheard a woman screaming about a purse snatcher. Yuuto retrieved the purse and had the criminal tied up and delivered to the police station in a blink.
When he heard another shout coming from an alleyway, he was convinced he'd found a mugger. He raced over.
Instead, a man with hedgehog spikes coming from his head crouched against a brick wall. His face swelled all over from a beating. Two policemen towered over him.
"Please, I don't want any trouble," the metahuman whispered, one hand raised to protect his face. His other arm dripped blood.
"I saw you look at me funny." The policeman smacked his hand against his baton. "You saw the freak look at me funny too, didn't you?" He nudged his buddy.
The other policeman curled back his lip. "Going around looking like that, anyone would see you as a threat." He pointed at the spikes. "What were you thinking, going out in public like that?"
Yuuto posed with his hands on his hips and his cape fluttering. "He was thinking I would came save him!" Then he winced. He'd been tossing off one-liners all day, but that had probably been the worst yet. It didn't even make any sense.
To cover up his embarrassment, he activated strength and speed, grabbed the policemen's heads, and knocked them together.
Turning with a smile on his face, he wrote a check and threw it to the metahuman. "Please, use this to treat your injuries. Don't worry, I have loads more money where that came from."
The hedgehog-like man backed away in terror. For some reason, people kept doing that whenever he smiled at them. "Are you insane? You just attacked the police! You know what they do to people like us if we fight back!"
"Nah, it'll be fine. I'll explain what happened." Yuuto scooped up one policeman under each arm and ran back to the police station again.
He deposited these two next to the last criminal he'd caught. "These corrupt policemen were attacking people with metahuman powers for no reason. I'm sure you'll handle this matter." He beamed at the police, who were backing away slowly into the station.
Someone snapped a picture of him. Yuuto turned his head. "Take another picture. My best profile is the right side of my face. Here's my business card, in case you need to know who to award with a medal."
He tucked his card into the collar of one unconscious policeman. He'd printed out his brother's name and "HERO" in even larger letters. Imagining all of Japan knowing Hisashi Shigaraki as a hero made him want to rock back and forth chuckling in glee.
With one last wave, Yuuto took off.
Then he stopped another bank robbery, prevented a landslide from crushing some campers, fended off a bear attack, subdued a band of looters, and rescued a cat from a tree.
Exhausted in a happy way, Yuuto headed back to his brother's office. All this in just one day!
He put his feet up on the desk, just because he knew it would annoy his brother. Look, he had another email from the government! No doubt Akira Shogo would apologize profusely and beg him to become a professional hero. He started composing a gracious acceptance inside his head.
The underground bunker rang with the force of Yuuto's scream. "Illicit use of metahuman powers? Assault of police? They've declared me a villain?"
Unfortunately, Hisashi hadn't been able to outrun the blond pest. His current body absolutely sucked. Even a short sprint had left him utterly winded. His forehead ached where he'd smacked it against a tree trunk. Heat covered his skin. He coughed again, tasting blood in the back of his throat.
Kaji jogged up next to him. "Are you okay, shitty supervillain?"
Hisashi glared and wished he could murder with his eyes. He'd had a lovely laser eye ability at one point—now gone, of course.
Eyeing the trickle of blood, Kaji said, "Come back to my place. I have Yuuto's medicine."
"Excuse me?" Hisashi snarled. "Why would I possibly want to visit your no doubt filthy hovel?"
Kaji met him glare for glare. "Because you don't want your brother's body to die…especially not with you inside it."
Hisashi's borrowed heart did a flip-flop. He didn't think he was dying. He felt terrible—achy limbs, trouble breathing, still hungry—but not quite that terrible. Still, if he neglected his current weak body the same way his younger brother always did, matters might head in that direction.
In all honesty, he lacked any other means of obtaining medicine at the moment.
Hisashi raised his nose. "Lead the way."
"Whoa, it's strange hearing that snooty voice come out of Yuuto's mouth," Kaji muttered as he led them forward.
As Hisashi had expected, the punk's home didn't look like much. It was a wooden cabin on the outskirts of town. Although Hisashi could find no complaints concerning the cleanliness of the interior, it had only a few pieces of furniture and no decorations.
First, Kaji handed him an inhaler and some ice for his head. Then the blonde headed to the kitchenette and put butter on a frying pan. Over his shoulder, he called, "I save the fancy cooking for Yuuto. I'll make you some Rice-A-Roni."
Hisashi breathed into the inhaler. His pain didn't seem to be subsiding. He could still barely inhale and exhale.
What if he was stuck like this for the rest of his life? He could barely comprehend the horror. If the metahuman power had been designed to teach him a lesson, not merely make him suffer, then the lesson must be connected to his foolish little brother. If he could solve the riddle, then he could get his body back. But he didn't understand what it could be.
He muttered, "What did I possibly do to deserve this?"
From the kitchen, Kaji snorted. "Besides all the stealing abilities and sometimes murdering people afterward?"
"Okay, but what did I do to my little brother? I only ever tried to love and protect him."
"You locked him in a bank vault! You suck! If there was a prize for worst brother, you'd have already won it."
"I'm going to kill you."
"That's not going to make you suck any less." Kaji slammed the pilaf down on the table.
Embarrassingly, Hisashi's stomach grumbled. He wolfed down the food. It tasted acceptable, but out loud, he said, "Too greasy."
Kaji said, "Yet your brother will eat my food, but not yours."
The insult landed right in Hisashi's sore spot. It stung how Yuuto had rejected all of his loving older brother's kindness.
Around a mouthful of rice, Hisashi mumbled, "Yuuto always did have poor taste in friends."
Kaji snorted. "Who do you think is to blame for that, shitty supervillain?"
Hisashi blinked. "What's that supposed to mean?" He could be accused of many crimes, but not of encouraging his brother's association with this ruffian.
"You chased off everyone who wanted to be friends with Yuuto…or who wanted to date him." Kaji's lips curled back. "Half the school had a crush on Yuuto. He's kind and fun to be around and very easy on the eyes." The frank admiration on Kaji's tone was enough to give an older brother a nervous breakdown. "But you made sure no one would go near him. Remember that rich kid who wanted to take Yuuto on a trip to America?"
"It was too far away to be safe, and he clearly had ulterior motives," Hisashi grumbled.
"You didn't stop at forbidding it. You threatened to bankrupt his father's company."
"So?"
"So I had a lot less competition for Yuuto's affections after that." Kaji's smile could have frozen an ice cube tray. "I know you're right—I'm not good enough for Yuuto. But I'm the only one who stuck around when you tried to isolate him. I don't have any family or dreams. Yuuto is the only thing in my life worth living for. I know full well you're serious when you threaten to kill me, but I don't give a solitary fuck. I won over the other contenders because I had nothing to lose. If you want to know the reason why your baby brother ended up with a punk like me, you only need to look in the mirror."
Hisashi paled. Surely this couldn't be true. Unfortunately, he couldn't think of any other explanation for Yuuto dating so far below his league. Had his well-intentioned protection truly been responsible for pushing his precious little brother into the arms of this brute? How could he have failed so badly as a guardian?
Surely he could fix this. To start with, if he locked Yuuto up more securely next time, then this punk wouldn't be able to get to him! That sounded like a solid step one.
"Ugh, wipe that creepy expression off Yuuto's face," Kaji said. "I swear, I don't understand how two brothers can be so different."
Yuuto waved goodbye to the smiling kids at the orphanage. He told Kenjiro, "They loved your act."
The one-time bodyguard nodded. He looked miserable dressed in a red polka dot puffy shirt with rainbow hair and a rubber nose. Exactly as planned. Yuuto covertly took another picture.
"It's funny, they were happy enough to accept my money, but no one wanted any metahuman powers from me." Yuuto pouted. He had so many to give away after his latest fights! Although he enjoyed redistributing his older brother's money, giving away his beloved collection would be an even better way to piss him off.
Kenjiro itched a finger underneath his wig. "Being an orphan is hard enough. Why would they want to deal with metahuman discrimination, too?" The man had definitely lost more of his respectful tone the longer he'd spent with Yuuto.
"That sounds like a great superhero origin story."
"Unless you end up dead. That's what happened to my sister. I only joined your damn organization because I needed someone powerful to protect me." Kenjiro winced. "I mean, I'm grateful to serve, master."
"No, thank you for your honesty. It seems I have a lot to understand about how the world works." Yuuto sighed. "I've already been condemned as a villain just for helping people."
"You also attacked policemen."
"They were being assholes!"
"I don't think the law has a 'they were being assholes' clause."
"But don't all the lives I saved count for something?"
Kenjiro shot him a cautious look. "I would imagine that only angered the government more. You showed them up by rescuing more people in a short time frame then their professional heroes have done since their inception. Right now, society is on crumbling grounds. Those in power don't want people to start relying on something besides their government."
"That makes a lot of sense."
"You're the one who explained it to me, master."
"That's right! I was testing you, and you passed. Well-done. No more clown costume for you."
Kenjiro looked about to faint with relief. "Thank you, master."
Left with plenty to think about, Yuuto bit his lip. Maybe he owed his brother an apology for a few things he'd said the last time they'd argued. It looked like it wasn't so easy to be a hero when you had a power everyone would assume was villainous. In retrospect, he'd been naïve about some of his ideals.
That said, Yuuto knew full well a lot of his ignorance came from spending so much time cooped up at home. Things had clearly gotten worse for metahumans while he'd been locked up, yet his older brother had denied him any news from the outside world. Hisashi had only permitted Yuuto to learn about world events from his own lips, so it had been impossible to tell how much had been truth versus falsehood. Yuuto had defaulted to assuming everything his brother had said was a lie, but at least some of it had turned out to be true.
For the first time in a long time, Yuuto wished he could talk to Hisashi. Now that Yuuto had learned some uncomfortable truths about the world, maybe they could have a real conversation instead of just shouting.
He spent the return trip home in silence, thinking.
Back in his office, Yuuto stared at Machia. "The government invited you to become a professional hero?"
Machia bounced from foot to foot, a huge grin on his face. "I was scouted, Lord! They were very impressed by how many cats I rescued from trees. They also said my strength ability looked very flashy and heroic."
"I'm so happy for you," Yuuto muttered. He tried not to let his bitterness show on his face. He told himself that he didn't want to associate with the stupid corrupt government and he was far happier as a vigilante anyway.
But really, he'd saved countless lives and taken down hundreds of villains while Machia got scouted for rescuing cats? It was almost like the government just wanted some easily-controllable patsies with cool-looking powers they could parade before the crowds.
Wait a moment…
Machia said, "I almost turned them down because I only serve you, Lord. Then I remembered that you wanted to become a hero, so I thought you might prefer if I accepted the offer. I was confused, so I told them I'd think about it."
"What do you want?" Yuuto asked.
Machia stared at him blankly. "Whatever you desire, Lord."
"It should be your own choice. Why don't you think about it some more and then tell me?"
After Machia had left, Yuuto leaned back in his office chair and wished even more he could talk to his brother. There were some things Hisashi had told him that he now wished he'd listened to more closely. And he had some of his own ideas to share. There might even be a few things they'd both agree would make the world better.
He checked his email. Another message from the Akira Shogo on behalf of the Japanese government. Sitting up straight, Yuuto read carefully.
Blah blah surrender, useless threats, how embarrassing coming from someone supposed to be a hero.
The message also included a video of a cabin in the forest. What an odd thing to send him. He didn't recognize this place at all.
Then he played the video, and saw the familiar blond head of Kaji Bakugo through a window. This must be his boyfriend's newest safehouse, but why would the government send this? Although nothing was overtly stated, it felt like a threat.
Yuuto read the last line of the email, and all color paled from his face.
What did they mean about taking his younger brother hostage?
OMAKE TIME!
Omake: If Yuuto Knew About Kaji's Conversation with Hisashi
Yuuto: Wait, you always thought that I only got together with you because my brother chased off everyone else?
Kaji: It doesn't bother me. I'm just happy to be with you.
Yuuto: Your self-esteem is too low. I had a crush on you within five minutes of meeting you.
Kaji: Oh, Yuuto…
Hisashi: Break up this mushy crap or I swear I'm going to start stabbing people.
#
Omake: Incorrect Quotes, the Monty Python and the Holy Grail Edition
Hisashi: Having a pretty younger sibling is suffering. If you knew how many sleazy suitors I had to chase off over the years, maybe you'd show a little gratitude. You were in great peril.
Yuuto: You could have let me taste a little bit of the peril.
Hisashi: Nope, too perilous.
Yuuto: Bet you're asexual.
Hisashi: Am not.
Yuuto: You're lucky I was too distracted with Kaji to notice or I would have run away from home much earlier.
Hisashi: The only reason I didn't chase away Kaji was because I assumed he was too ugly to be a threat.
Yuuto: He's not ugly. Also, I'm offended that you think I'm so shallow as to only care about looks.
Hisashi: But his personality is garbage too!
#
Omake: The No-Win Situation
Hisashi: If this was canon and I still had All for One, I'd have killed you already.
Kaji: Ah, yes, canon, where I was the Second One for All User and you defeated me in battle—sending me straight to the Void. A place where I got to spend eternity with your brother and you couldn't come near him.
Hisashi: Err, I didn't know that would happen at the time.
Kaji: It was just the two of us, all alone, forced to find ways to entertain ourselves. On the upside, there were no neighbors to complain no matter how noisy we got.
Hisashi: Why you—
Kaji: Do you feel like a winner?
Hisashi: Grrr…
#RIP Poor Third #First he was stuck sleeping in the room next to these two when he was alive #Then after he dies, he's stuck in the Void where they're still going at it #Third wheel between two lovebirds for the rest of eternity #This poor man's ears
Author's Note: First I write a story with Evil First, now I write a villain First. Just kidding, Yuuto, I know you're not actually a villain. Stop hissing at me.
Despite the First's canon name being revealed in Chapter 310, I don't intend to change it in any of my ongoing stories. I'm not a big fan of this thing called canon, I believe that if it interferes with my headcanons it deserves to be crushed under my boot. For Karma Quirk, I'm sticking with the same explanation I used in Deathbed Wish—The First's birthname was Yuuto and he later changed it to Yoichi after assuming a false identity to escape his older brother. In this AU, Yuuto has yet to change his name and probably never will, given how his attempt to join the professional heroes is currently working out for him.
I have a lot of headcanons about Kaji/the Second User. For example, he was the one to start the All for One versus One for All feud. Yuuto never hated his brother enough to want him dead, not even at the end. Kaji, on the other hand…
Yuuto: I don't think my brother approves of our relationship.
Kaji: Point me in his direction, and I'll take care of that problem.
Yuuto: You're going to persuade him to accept us and also to quit being a villain?
Kaji: (Hiding his knife behind his back.) Oh, was that how you wanted me to handle the situation? Sure, love, I can try that. And if it doesn't work, we'll save my plan for the backup.