Foreword:
And there I was, not dead!
I'm sorry, I was very late this time around. I didn't intend to take so long but it just kind of happened. The chapter this time around is much longer than usual so hopefully, that can count as somewhat of an apology.
As always, please leave a comment to tell me what you thought of it, and I hope you enjoy.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of the One-Punch Man or the My Hero Academia franchises. All the credit goes to their respective authors and artists.
WARNING: Graphic description of blood and violence.
Chapter 7
Pain.
Endless, excruciating pain.
Every second felt like an eternity as the pain coursed through every fiber in Midoriya's body.
He shouldn't be able to fail pain, he hadn't felt anything right up until that bright light fried his senses, and suddenly his entire body was burning away. Midoriya couldn't even process what had happened before the pain forced him to scream, but no sound came from his mouth.
This was not because there could be no sound, but because his vocal cords were disintegrating, as was every other molecule in his body.
His heart wasn't beating, his eyes could see only darkness, his ears couldn't hear a sound, and still the pain coursed through him like a cascading river.
Part of him wanted to die, in death, he should at least be released from the agony he was going through he thought. But another side of him had different plans and was holding his mind together.
The majority of his mind, despite the pain, didn't want to go yet.
Suddenly he heard something, a scream coming from far behind him, somewhere in this void of his own head. It was a man's scream, one that roared with the same pain he was going through.
Soon another one followed, this time a woman's. The high-pitched sound easily pierced through the man's scream, as it echoed through the void.
Then another followed, and another, and another. One by one until nearly a dozen voices were screaming in the mind of Midoriya, who hadn't known what was going on before but could make no sense of it now.
Then, suddenly, the pain was gone.
Toshinori shot up from his slouched position on the hospital chair, having awoken from his slumber by the sudden increase in high-pitched beeps coming from the monitors beside Midoriya's bed.
Through his sleep-deprived eyes, as he had barely slept an hour or two throughout the night and morning that followed, he noticed Midroiya's heart rate rising rapidly while his adrenaline was going through the roof, as if he was in a high-speed chase.
Although tired, his own adrenaline kicked in and he immediately slammed the button beside the bed to call a nurse.
The nurse, having already gotten a signal that a set of monitors were giving off dangerous measurements, entered the room at about the same time as Toshinori pressed the button, and looked on in shock. The heart rate monitor, the neural activity monitor, and the adrenaline measurement device all gave off values that were generally considered to be impossible.
He didn't hesitate to press a button inside his coat to call for a doctor.
"What's going on?" Toshinori asked, his voice containing clear panic.
"I'm not sure sir so please sit down, the doctor will be here in a moment." The nurse says, trying to calm All Might and himself down.
"Calm down? His heart rate is going over 200 beats per minute and his brain is almost literally on fire!"
Although he was normally quite composed, this situation was testing All Might's nerves like never before. Not only was his student dying in front of him, but that same student also possessed One for All, and his death could mean the loss of the only thing that could realistically hold off All for One.
The doctor entered the room at breakneck speed, her white overcoat whipped as she came to a halt in front of the monitors.
"220 and rising… Get the medkit in room 300, quickly!" The doctor shouted at the nurse, who bolted out the door with speed similar to the doctor.
"What's going on?" Toshinori asks again.
"His readings are all over the place... It might have something to do with his quirk, does he have a history of doing this?" The doctor asks All Might while keeping her calm.
"N-no, no he doesn't." All Might stammers as he realizes it is One for All again that is endangering the boy's life.
"Then we have to find a way to sedate it, if this keeps up he could sustain permanent heart and nerve damage. And if these readings rise again he could, in the worst-case scenario, die." The doctor says completely seriously as she pushes past Toshinory to adjust several IVs connected to Midoriya.
"Hasn't Recovery Girl been called yet?" All Might asks, becoming more panicked as time goes on.
"Can you see him? He doesn't have the strength to handle that. We need to get him stable so tha- could you please move from the bedside?" The doctor says as she tries to move past All Might again, who quickly takes two steps back to allow the doctor the space to move.
The nurse ran through the door, his movement coming to a halt as he threw a small case down on the side of the bed. The doctor moves past him to open it and pulls out a large syringe which, filled with a transparent liquid, is promptly stuck into Midoriya's arm.
Three compounds, of which each particle was no larger than a small atom, had been injected into Midoriya's body the night before, with each a different purpose entirely.
The combination of the three had been common practice for as long as nanobiology had existed, and the variants used on Midoriya were of the most splendid kind.
The first was meant to target nerve damage and repair it, using the DNA taken from the host to replicate it nearly perfectly. Although it was not effective on brain tissue, it was more than enough for regular nerve endings.
But this variation of the compound was special, in the sense that it could calculate the best course of action on the fly without any outside help.
It was a medicine that could compute.
The second was meant to keep the first type in check so that if its calculations went haywire, it could mitigate the damage and allocate it with a different task immediately.
Despite the simple description of its task, the actual execution was much harder. The medicine it had to suppress was, after all, able to compute extremely complex issues, and so it too needed computational intelligence several orders of magnitude greater than the average AI.
It was a medicine that could think.
The third was meant as something of a guard dog, something that would keep interference away from the first and second medicine. Although it did its job well, it wasn't what could be called intelligent like the other two were, it was the most simple of the three when it came to design.
It was a medicine that could only respond.
Together, these three formed the basis of most treatments related to direct tissue damage which did not involve toxins or other, more exotic tissue killers.
Normally, they would do their job perfectly and without any major issues when dealing with such simple damage.
Normally, they would then disintegrate in the mouth (or whatever organ was used to simulate taste) of the host to announce the completion of the treatment.
Normally, they would taste like strawberries.
But the sequence of events that should have happened, did not happen.
Instead, the extreme burst of energy that entered Midoriya's system, and by extension, that of the three medicines, sent the compounds for a ride. The energy was far too much for any normal human to survive, hell, it was far too much for even the average superhuman to survive, and regrettably, Midoriya only belonged to a category somewhere in between those two.
Luckily for Midoriya, he had help.
The moment the energy started frying Midoriya's nerve cells, compound one sprung into action, regenerating damaged nerve tissue at a rate about double that of the disintegration in progress. Restoring damaged nerve tissue but not stopping there.
The second compound, which originally had the purpose to stop the first if it were to stray from the initial treatment, instead joined it in its efforts to cease the annihilation of the host, redirecting the first compound's efforts from nerve damage repair to muscle restoration, bone regeneration, and any other tissue it found that had been damaged.
Normally, neither of these medicines would do this, and compounds of this kind usually had a fail-safe to prevent it from doing this, as it usually only left the host to suffer before eventually succumbing to the damage anyway.
But despite the extremely complex nature of these little machines, they were still prone to an overload. And the energy that was soaring through Midoriya's body was more than enough to mess up the intricate designs with which the machines were created.
The third medicine, meant to keep even such influences from affecting the two compounds, had failed miserably in its task and instead had disintegrated immediately under the wave of energy that had hit the other two.
Muscles disintegrated and repaired themselves, bones splintered apart and jumped back into place a moment later, nerves untangled and reformed, even Midoriya's skin turned to ash and was regenerated mere milliseconds later. All night, the medicine kept Midoriya alive in silence.
As the energy wave subsided and Midoriya's body reformed to handle the pressure coming from within, the machines in his system finally allowed his heart to pump again.
The adrenaline, having been suspended due to the continued annihilation of the body, was finally able to flow through Midoriya's veins again, and his heart rate shot through the roof.
With a quick release of several sparks of electricity, that adrenaline was suppressed too, and the two compounds made their way to their final destination.
Midoriya opened his eyes when the sweet flavor of strawberries hit his taste buds.
The moment the needle pierced Midoriya's skin, the heart monitor, neural measurement device, and all the other machines connected to Midoriya suddenly went quiet. Each and every one of them had returned to their regular values.
The doctor looked on in disbelief at the values displayed. Her head went back and forth between the monitors and the needle with which she had pierced Midoriya's arm. Or, with which she had tried to pierce his arm.
The needle, which she was certain had gone all the way to the bloodstream in his upper arm, was simply pricking his arm from the side, not even drawing blood.
Part of her wanted to prick again to see if she had simply been dreaming when she stuck it into him, but she was interrupted by the former number one hero walking up behind her.
"What happened? Did it work?" Toshinori asked, his voice still tense.
"It- He's better, I suppose…" The doctor answers, confused to no end by the sudden change in readings.
Was that his quirk again…?
Before she could get another thought in, All Might suddenly rushed forward to the side of the bed, his eyes having gotten moist at the sight in front of him.
Midoriya had opened his eyes.
The beautiful morning light reflected off of the polished glass windows of the shopping district of Musutafu.
The warm sunlight combined with the pleasant breeze made for a much-desired climate, and a good chunk of the population of Musutafu had decided to make use of it.
The busy streets were packed with people despite it being a weekday, and the shop workers had their hands full with the number of customers shopping for summer clothes.
One of such customers, Nakanishi Emiko, had just come out of a tough battle over a green, two-piece bikini that matched the color of her hair she had been eyeing for several weeks, but had never had the courage, nor the money, to pick up.
But that day she had woken up particularly daring and had decided to buy it in the early morning.
Unluckily for her, four others had thought the same, and a 'scuffle' occurred in the store shortly after her arrival.
The store clerks, being well aware of several similar fights breaking out all over the store, decided to keep out of it and waited patiently at the checkout.
After a drawn-out battle the likes of which she hadn't seen since her younger hero days, the green-haired woman walked up to the counter and cashed in her prize.
The store clerk tried very hard not to stare at her, but he couldn't help but take quick glances at her from across the counter, mostly due to the fact one of her eyes had swollen up and scratch marks covered the arm with which she had handed over the item.
"Just this one please." She said, her voice as happy as a child that had finally gotten its promised ice cream.
"R-right away." The clerk says, swiftly scanning the item to allow her to quickly get out of the store and, if possible, to the nearest hospital.
She exited the store with a bright smile on her blissful, albeit slightly swollen, face.
Now that she had gotten what she came for she tried to push through the masses on her way back to the station, but she soon discovered her progress was akin to that of a snail climbing a mountain, and frowned.
Taking a sharp left turn at the side of the walkway, she entered a small alleyway to escape the rush.
Emiko sighed in relief when she was finally able to take a breath without her lungs being filled with the recycled air of others, but immediately froze when she heard a noise coming from several meters further up in the alley, hidden behind an overflowing dumpster.
It was the sound of a fist striking flesh, unheard by the rushing people in the street.
The sound, echoing through the alley just loud enough for her to hear, but just soft enough for the people in the street a few meters away to not hear a thing, gave Emiko more than a clear idea of what was going on. Someone was getting one-sidedly beaten up.
She slowly lowered the bags in her hands and hid them in a corner of the dark alley, before taking out her phone and pressing several buttons.
It had been a few years, but she too had been a hero back in the day. Luckily, despite her new profession as a reception worker, her job at the HPSC gave her the right to confront a villain should she come across one, and her experience told her that whatever was happening in the alley was most certainly not legal.
She slowly, with her eyes focused solely on the origin of the sound, went towards the opposite wall and walked around the dumpster.
What she saw was what she expected, but still revolting, to see.
A filthy-looking man was crouched over another, much better-dressed man while beating his face senseless.
"Stop that right now! You're under arrest under the authority of the HPSC for charges of assault, turn around with your hands in the air." She spoke, her cold voice more than loud enough for the man to hear.
The man, not having noticed anyone else in the alley, spun around quicker than she had expected and grinned at her with a disgusting smile.
The man's unkempt beard and greasy hair fused together around his face, forming a gross mask that allowed any onlooker to see nothing but his eyes, nose, and mouth. His clothes were ragged, and his boots were almost certainly missing their soles. He looked like any regular hobo found in the worst parts of town, but this one appeared much more threatening.
His arms were abnormally large and muscled, and from his knuckles drops of blood fell onto the ground.
Emiko's face hardened after seeing the man's physique.
Definitely physical enhancement, this could get rough.
She thought, knowing her quirk was less effective in such an enclosed area. Yet she still repeated her words at the man standing before her.
"Hands in the air, if you don't you could end up in a worse place than prison." She said, hoping to dissuade him from making any rash moves.
In response, the man only broadens his smile, and slowly lifts both his hands into the air.
Now that the man had risen up and his abnormal arms were no longer blocking Emiko's vision, she was finally able to get a good look at the man laying on the ground behind the criminal.
Her face grew even stiffer.
The man's face was bruised so badly he had become unrecognizable, and his arms hung limply beside his body. His right eye couldn't close properly anymore due to the swelling, but his drooling posture made it clear he wasn't conscious in the slightest.
The hobo, seeing her look at the man behind him, spoke in a raspy voice.
"You see, he wouldn't give me his wallet when I kindly asked him to, and even started to scream! I just wanted him to see how wrong he was in not responding to my kind pleas for some cash you know? After that, I got a bit… carried away. It was an honest mistake! " The man said, the mockery clear in his voice.
Emiko didn't pay his words any mind.
"Get on the ground with your hands behind your back." She responded while staying at a distance of about two meters, as much distance as she could take in the rather cramped alley.
The man, whose grin hadn't left his face ever since he had spotted Emiko, slowly lowered himself to the ground, only to suddenly jump at her with outstretched hands, easily bridging the distance between the two.
However, Emiko hadn't been sitting still while she was talking, and with not a moment of delay swung her right hand to the sky in a sweeping motion.
Before the man had even moved a meter, a tree growing faster than a car could drive struck him in the face and he stumbled back against the wall, his left eye bleeding from the impact.
The tropical coconut tree, having grown several meters before stopping just above the buildings on either side of the alley, attracted the attention of several bystanders, who quickly realized someone had used their quirk and started to evacuate the area all by themselves, although in a less than orderly fashion.
Emiko, not giving the man any time to react, jumped towards the tree and grabbed it with both her hands before using her swinging momentum to kick the man in the face.
The man in question was still trying to shake off the dizziness assaulting his head and as such, hadn't the presence of mind to block or even notice the foot nearing his face.
With the sound of flesh hitting flesh, the man's face flung to the other side and a groan escaped his mouth.
He stumbled another step back while covering his face with his hands, but as Emiko tried to go in for another attack he jumped forward again, the smile on his face having been swept away by the two consecutive blows he had received, and being replaced by a look of rage.
The man tried to swing at her side, but she deftly avoided his fist and counterattacked with a quick jab to his stomach, causing another groan to escape his clenched teeth.
She then moved to create some distance between the two, but was shocked when the man suddenly grabbed her with his right arm despite being completely off-balance.
Due to her own already initiated movement, she was unable to stop the man from grabbing her arm.
She immediately realized the danger of the situation as she felt his much stronger than average grip strength, and tried to use her quirk again.
But in a cramped area with no room to manipulate the battlefield, the matchup was unfavorable from the start.
The man's left fist struck her face with enough force to break her nose on impact, and if he hadn't been holding on to her arm from the start, it was certain she would have been rolling on the ground. Luckily the pain was bearable, but as she tried to open her eyes to assess the situation, another blow struck her stomach.
The blow made her fold over, and while just moments ago the pain couldn't make her utter a sound, this blow made her throw up on the spot. She almost fell to the floor, but the man still holding her arm lifted her upright again and threw her to the wall, half a meter beside the first victim of his strength.
When she hit the wall and heard, but much more prominently than that felt, another crack somewhere in her body, she coughed up blood and slid down to the ground. Her head was spinning and she was certain she had broken several bones, but the criminal wasn't willing to allow her any rest.
Before she had fully opened her eyes again the man had already thrown another fist at her face, and with the sound of a fist striking flesh, her vision blurred.
She tried to open her eyes again, and while she managed to despite the crushing pain coming from the side of her face, the drawn back fist of the criminal in front of her almost made her wish she hadn't.
"This is what you get bitch!" The man screamed with his raspy voice, the rage burning in his eyes after the woman had nearly knocked out his last remaining teeth.
She braced herself for the next strike, knowing she had no way of getting up before that punch would connect with her face.
But the punch never came.
The man who had intended to hit the woman a few more times before fleeing from the cops that were certainly approaching, was suddenly unable to move his arm, as if it had been frozen in mid-air.
"That's more than enough out of you." A completely different person suddenly said with a deep and authoritative voice.
The man, unable to hide his surprise, turned around with wide eyes, which was just in time for him to see a gloved fist moving at alarming speeds on a collision course with his face.
The cracking sound that reverberated throughout the alley was all that one needed to know to grasp the condition of the man's skull, but as if to ensure his situation couldn't be mistaken for a mild headache, he was thrown away like a rag doll, hitting the ground several times before sliding to a standstill a dozen meters away near the other end of the alley.
Blood splattered all around the alley as the body tumbled to the ground.
Emiko, who had shut her eyes to brace for the impact of the man's fist, snapped them open as the sound of a body rolling across the floor reached her ears. Although one of her eyes was still too swollen to open properly, it was enough to see the man kneeling in front of her clearly.
"You fought well, I've already called an ambulance here so don't worry about your own condition or that of the man." He said with a warm smile while nodding at the unconscious man sitting on the ground next to her.
Although she wanted to say many things, the face of the man kneeling in front of her gave her too much of a shock to properly put into words, and so she only stared at him for several seconds.
The man broke the silence with a frown on his face.
"Wait, aren't you the receptionist from yesterday?" He said with a surprised look on his face before shaking his head.
"What a small- What am I saying? I've got to get you stabilized before you lose any more blood."
Although she wanted to tell the man how grateful she was and that she would like to speak more, the adrenaline that had been keeping the pain partially at bay started to wear out, and all that came from her mouth was a pained groan.
The man put a hand behind her head and moved to lay her down, making sure there was a coat between the cobbled ground and her.
Then, as she heard the police sirens getting closer, he smiled at her again.
"Everything will be alright." He spoke, with so much certainty in his voice that it not only convinced her, but probably also the tree and several of the loose rocks on the ground.
Although she wanted to reach out, he had already gotten up from the ground and moved a little further into the alley, murmuring something under his breath.
Then, as if his presence had been only a dream, he suddenly vanished into thin air, with only a small gust of wind to indicate he had been there at all.
A weak smile formed on Emiko's lips despite still being stained with her own blood, before a wave of drowsiness forced her conscious to take a backseat.
Because she lost consciousness, she didn't even notice the smell of blood and brain tissue, which was unceremoniously scattered across the rocky floor of the alleyway.
"These numbers can't be right, what the hell is going on?" A man with greying hair says to his assistant as he reads the piece of paper given to him again and again.
"We don't know sir, but the police are working themselves to death trying to keep up with whoever is doing this." The assistant answers before he taps his earpiece and beelines out of the room in a hurry.
"Don't we have the slightest clue? Someone capable of doing this can't have flown under our radar for any period of time right? What do the witnesses say?" Another occupant of a chair at the long table at H.P.S.C. says.
"It's a mess trying to keep track of them sir, but they all speak of a man wearing a white and black hero suit beating muggers and abusers with little to no effort. The resulting injuries sustained by the detained range from bruises and cuts to broken bones and..." A different assistant, standing at attention in a corner of the spacious room, speaks to take over from the assistant that left the room, hesitation clear in his voice.
"And what? Speak up man we don't have the time to laze about!" An elderly man says from his position at the table, waving at the assistant to get on with it.
"W-well, some criminals the police found were quite… damaged. It says so on page fifteen of the third report." The assistant says as he points at the report currently in the hands of the man sitting at the head of the table.
The man in question quickly turns a few pages before his face hardens, his eyes having found the page, filled with pictures, in question.
"This is…"
Another occupant of the room, a younger woman who stumbled upon the same page moments later, looks at the page in shock.
"What the fuck is this?!" She shouts at the assistant, as if he was responsible for the page existing in the first place.
"I-I don't k-know! I-It seems like the one responsible doesn't have any qualms about killing villains, but there is something more worrying at the end of the pa-"
"Everyone that died had some form of strength quirk." The man with grey hair at the head of the table says with a solemn expression.
The entire table goes silent at the manś words. It takes several seconds for a middle-aged man to speak up again.
"But, why? What's the point?"
"I don't know, but if I had to guess, it's probably a warning of sorts."
"A warning?"
"That he can kill any criminal easily, evident by the fact that he simply crushes the skulls of strength-quirk users, but doesn't kill any of the ones that should be a lot less durable."
"But then why kill three?! It would have been understood the first time!"
"Maybe he's not completely in control of his power?"
"Don't say such garbage, he would have killed them all if he had such issues with control."
"No he has a point, all the killings happened in the first 10 reported cases."
"But then why only kill three by accident and not all 10? They are spread out and specific for strength-related quirks."
"Maybe he's just a villain that enjoys killing people with specific kinds of quirks?"
"Let's… hope not."
The discussion between the members of the board of H.P.S.C. went around in circles as they attempted to uncover the reason for the killings, until the assistant that had left the room in a hurry returned.
"We know who he is!" The assistant shouts as he enters the room, causing every head to turn his way.
He runs to the head of the table and drops a small bundle of files in front of the man.
"A receptionist working at the Takoba Stadium was one of the victims of one of the killed villains and confirmed his identity just moments ago. He's the hero who caused such a commotion at the Provisional Exam in Takoba yesterday! The one that was denied his license despite getting a perfect score." The assistant says as the grey-haired man's face turns pale while reading the report.
Before he even finishes the entire paper, the man sinks back into his chair and clumsily throws it to the nearest official seated at the table.
The reaction to the words of the assistant was divided. Several members of the board were well aware of the man in question, and had started to frown when they realized their part in the current events. Some others hadn't been present when the decision was made the night before, and so they simply looked at the man at the head of the table with question marks written all over their faces.
Just as the face of the official reading the report turned pale, the grey-haired man started to speak.
"His hero name is Blast, he participated in the Provisional Hero Exam and was given a perfect 100, but despite that several of us decided not to grant him his license, due to his questionable origins and…"
"Overwhelming power." Finished the man that had finished the report and handed it to the man to his right.
"That's what you wanted to say, right?"
The grey-haired man nodded.
"He has super speed greater than Hawks, super strength on par with Gang Orca, flight, some sort of explosive laser eyes, and, apparently, the ability to drain electricity to fuel his own strength. One of these powers would put him on par with several of the rising stars in the hero world, or at least give him a lot of potential, but he is in possession of all of these, as confirmed by more than a hundred witnesses." He continues, the faces of the officials seated at the table growing more and more grim as he goes on.
"On top of that, he has almost certainly had some sort of disaster training according to the members of H.U.C., because his rescue attempts were all, and I quote, 'exemplary'." The second official who read the report continues, recalling the words of praise included in the report.
"Although he claims to be from the United States, they do not have any records of him, he has no known family or affiliation anywhere, no prior occupation, no credit cards to his name, not even a birth certificate as far as the U.S. is aware. All he has shown is an I.D. that, despite everything, still checks out for some reason." The assistant adds on while simultaneously calling someone in English, confirming the validity of his own statement.
"All in all, he's a man that came out of nowhere with extensive hero experience, wielding what appears to be several quirks, which gives him enough power to give our top heroes a run for their money." The grey-haired man concludes as the report once more gets passed on to the next person seated at the table.
The office of the H.P.S.C. goes silent at his words, even several assistants stopped running around to listen to their words.
Eventually, an official that hadn't taken part in the decision to deny the man's provisional license spoke up.
"Why was he denied his license then? It's just a provisional one anyway. Now we have an extremely dangerous vigilante on our hands!" He says while taking the report from the man to his left.
"It's… Hindsight is 20/20. We judged the risk too great and his story too full of holes. Had we known he would become a vigilante the very next day we might have acted differently." The grey-haired man says in response while massaging his temples.
"What is important now is to figure out our next move. Most vigilantes are left alone due to their relatively good work and manageable quirks, but this one is different."
"Different?! He's stopped 84 crimes within the span of several hours, all on his own! I know this might be disrespectful, but the speed at which he disposes of criminals is in All Might's weight class." Said another official, reading the number from the report out loud.
Although many wanted to criticize his words, none could come up with a counter-argument. 84 is a large number for a month, let alone a single day. Comparing that to All Might wasn't as far-fetched as the people at the table would have liked it to be.
"Well his speed might be comparable to All Might, but his quirks aren't extraordinarily powerful, are they? His strength is definitely a cause for worry, but it is nowhere near All Mights. His heat vision or whatever also isn't comparable to Endeavour's stronger attacks, and many heroes have had flight before." An official who had just read the report says.
"What are you saying?"
"That this guy seems like a jack of all trades, but a master of none." The official continues.
"What are you saying? With the speed described here, I wouldn't call that a 'master of none'." A different official says in return, getting agitated at the man's unwillingness to see the grave threat right in front of him.
"But what do we do then? He might be a criminal, a killer even, but stopping someone capable of using what is equivalent to all those quirks would take several top-ranked heroes, even if some of these quirks are weaker versions of what some heroes already possess. And that is only the case if he is truly working alone. If he has ties to the League of Villains we would need to prepare even more thoroughly." An older woman says while handing the report back to the grey-haired man.
The table goes quiet once more as each one of them attempts to visualize the effort required to arrest a man like that.
Each person this high up in the H.P.S.C. was by no means a fool, they had gotten to their position due to their intelligence and leadership skills, and so none of them doubted the content of the reports but instead, did their best to work with the information handed to them.
It was the grey-haired man that spoke up first.
"I suggest we allow the news agencies to know of the man's identity and the crimes he has committed. Emphasizing his multitude of quirks and number of killed villains." He says with a sigh, causing the table to once more explode in a cacophony of sound.
"What?! You want the media to cause civil unrest on purpose? You finally gone senile?"
"Yeah what's up with that? What would be the point of telling the entirety of Japan about an overpowered vigilante on the loose?"
"Shut up you two! You have to have some serious brain damage if you fail to grasp the point of this. The goal is to put pressure on this 'Blast' through the media instead of our organization because we can't really sanction him unless we go directly to arrest warrants!" The older woman says, getting visibly agitated.
"Yeah I got that, but what if this backfires? Stain is a perfect example of that, he shook the very foundations of the Statute solely because he looked cool and had a vaguely decent sounding ideology. What if this is a similar case, and any media attention this guy gets will instead bury us in even more shit than we already are. We don't even have All Might anymore to put the populace at rest!" The official counters with matching, or exceeding, agitation.
"Yeah and not only that, what if this guy tries to fill the void of All Might, but then as a vigilante? Can you imagine the damage that can do? He already resembles him somewhat, with the cape and the damn battle-scars!" Another official says, burying his head in his hands.
"Still, at least this way we can strike first, and imprint the right impression of him on everyone's mind before he himself seeks media attention one way or another."
"Will you take responsibility if this causes us to dig our own graves then, huh?"
"What are you on about? We have to-"
"SILENCE" Shouts the grey-haired man as he gets up from his chair, silencing the heated discussion that was turning the mood more and more grim.
"We have a single chance to keep this man under control, if the League rears its ugly head again we will no doubt have much more pressing matters to attend to, but now that the stage is ours after All Might sacrificed the last of his strength to give us this breathing room, we must take it." He says in the no longer hectic room.
"The people are afraid, and looking for a strong figurehead to replace All Might. If we let this be, it is possible that someone who does not align with the law could become that figurehead without us being able to do anything about it. That is the scenario we must avoid at all cost." He says, his breathing slowing down as he sits back down.
The room stays silent for a moment, before a middle-aged man stands up and, with the respect that the room just moments ago lacked, speaks his mind to the table.
"I agree, I agree with all of it. But what would happen if this were to backfire? The consequences wouldn't simply be grave, they could be disastrous. Several reports indicate movement in crime syndicates all over Japan, criminal activity is rising like never before, there are even signs the Meta Liberation Army is making a return. This Blast might not intend to do any of what was suggested here, but if we drive him into a corner he might decide to do exactly what we fear." The man says, sitting back down after he finished speaking.
The grey-haired man sighs again, his face revealing his unwillingness to speak.
"It doesn't matter if he intends to or not. We must deal with this now precisely because all of what you have said are facts. For what could only last a moment, we finally have a bit of peace, and this man will break that one way or another. I sincerely hope that he is a hero that simply forgot to control his strength, but if he is anything more than that, the foundations on which this nation was built could shake, just as they did when All Might retired." He says with a weak voice that was still easily heard by every occupant of the room.
The room stays silent once more as everyone mulls over his words.
The man looks around for a moment and, after meeting everyone's eyes, nods and speaks with renewed vigor.
"To make sure we don't miss anything, we will contact him immediately to clear up any misunderstanding we might have. If it is clear he wants to remain a vigilante then we will pressure him through the media before he gains traction. If that doesn't work we can put out a warrant for his arrest, assembling a small team of heroes to assist if necessary."
Several members of the board nod at his words, others only frown, but none raise any objections.
The assistants, who had been frozen in place due to the grand display of emotions they were not used to seeing, swiftly continued their work with a sigh, knowing they would have an even bigger workload ahead of them.
Well, who needs sleep anyway?
Hayashi Daisuke was running as he had never run before, pushing people left and right as he made his way through the crowd. His breathing had long gone ragged but he didn't care, he couldn't afford to care.
He was certain that monster was right behind him.
His quirk was nothing special, slightly elevated speed and stamina, probably one of the least interesting quirks of the century. He'd been bullied for it, almost as much as the quirkless, and that wasn't where life's miseries ended for him.
After getting his apartment leveled during a fight between a gigantified hero and villain, he was left homeless on the street. His insurance company was unwilling to pay him back and his lack of residence soon made him lose his job at the office.
Bit by bit his misfortune increased. He got into drinking when he met two other homeless people under a bridge three weeks after he lost his apartment, he got addicted to drugs a week later.
But even that didn't last long. Without a job, his money quickly ran dry, even with his desperate attempts at saving it. His addiction, however, was relentless, and screamed for another high, forcing him to look towards much less moral means to make money.
He was soon approached by a group in a very similar situation to his own: No money to their name and in desperate need of it.
They took a liking to his quirk, and with his clear motivation it was easy to ensure his cooperation.
They planned to rob a grocery store on the edge of the city center, just close enough to the busy streets to make a lot of money but just far enough to make an escape easier.
They prepared, well, not meticulously, but well enough for a group of hobo's looking for cash.
Several days later, they arrived before the grocery store later in the afternoon. It hadn't closed yet, but besides the manager and the cashier there were no other people inside, there never were at this time of day.
But just as they wanted to go in, everything went wrong.
Like a thunderstrike, what appeared to be a hero suddenly landed behind the group of four, as if he dropped from the sky.
The group stood frozen stiff. Having never expected to find themselves face to face with a hero, especially not one intimidating enough to put major villains to shame.
Daisuke didn't know who exactly did it, he was sure the hero was just looking at them with indifference and that they could still walk away, but one of the other three people suddenly activated his quirk, the ability to temporarily disorient up to two people within ten meters, and charged the hero with a lead pipe.
If the man had succeeded in his feeble attempt to knock the hero out they might have silently celebrated, but his pipe didn't even make it above his head.
The hero's fist was like a blur, and if the man hadn't been flung backward like a rag doll, or if they hadn't heard the cracking of bone as the man was hit, they would have believed that the hero never punched at all.
But all of the above did happen, and the three remaining people ran for their lives.
Hayashi Daisuke didn't pay any heed to the sound of a person being slammed into the ground, or to the screaming of another suddenly being cut off.
He simply ran with everything he had, but he was truly left with nothing now.
His legs gave in just as he made it to the bridge where he'd been hiding with his small group for the last few days. He quickly dropped below the bridge and sagged to the ground. Unable to even keep his eyes open as his arms went limp.
But just as he thought he was safe, he heard the deep voice of a man next to him.
"I didn't know what your friends were thinking, but you at least had the decency to run away without making a fuss."
Daisuke's eyes shot open and he turned to the origin of the new voice like he was possessed, before scrambling backward, away from the tall man standing in the shadow of the bridge. He didn't even have the energy to scramble properly and only managed to move a meter away.
"Hey there, calm down. You haven't committed a crime from what I know, so there's no need to be scared." The hero said, adding a hearty laugh to the end of his sentence, which only served to amplify the fear in Daisuke's heart, despite the content of the hero's words.
"Well, I suppose I did scare you a bit much there, didn't I? Take this for the trouble." The hero said as he suddenly threw a wallet in front of Daisuke, who, still undeniably terrified, looked from the wallet to the hero and back.
The hero simply shrugs and turns around, not bothering to check if the man picked it up or not.
Only when the hero disappeared around the corner did Daisuke dare to reach towards the wallet, which was surprisingly thick, and open it up. His eyes went wide as saucers when he realized the money inside was well in excess of a few hundred thousand yen.
This would be enough to last him for months, even with the drugs and the alcohol.
Just as he started to ask himself if he should thank the hero instead of running very far away from him, a voice from behind froze him on the spot.
"Oh, and don't associate yourself with types like that from now on, capiche? I was in a good mood before, but don't expect to meet me in a good mood again." The deep voice said in the same indifferent tones as before, but whereas then it seemed truly disinterested, this time the threat was loud and clear.
Daisuke didn't even dare to turn around, he simply nodded so fast he seemed to be trying to snap his own neck.
"Good." The voice said merrily, like a father would congratulate his son on his grades.
The sound of footsteps getting further and further away resounded throughout the night, accompanied by the sound of a, undoubtedly yet surprisingly beautiful, tune being whistled.
But Daisuke didn't care for the melodic tones, he stayed frozen for two minutes before he brought up the courage to turn around, where he was met with the shadow of the bridge and nothing more.
He never took drugs or picked up another bottle of booze after that night, but it would be a long time before he could sleep without insomnia medicine.
Blast couldn't help but think that the day had gone well.
His extraordinary speed allowed him to be at nearly every crime scene in the entire city before they could even conclude, which made for very happy civilians and very terrified muggers and villains.
Variable durability is a pain though.
He couldn't help but sigh at the thought.
At first, he was sure he'd gotten the hang of it when he was facing off against Gang Orca. He'd been able to control his strength to such an extent that none of Orca's lackeys got gravely injured, but today that was a lot harder all of a sudden.
He came to that conclusion after he accidentally splattered nameless villain #3's guts across the pavement, which was the second time he had accidentally killed one of them.
It turned out that everyone with a quirk, no matter how ridiculous, could also get an increase in durability. Although the increase was at least somewhat proportional to the type of quirk and its strength, the fact that people that could control bricks might have lower durability than people that could shoot razor-sharp flower petals really threw him off the first couple of times he saw it.
Eventually, he got used to it and adjusted accordingly, but three people lost their lives before he got a feel for it.
Not that he cared, but he didn't want it to cause problems down the line.
No point in crying over spilled milk I suppose.
But the strangest situation of the day had to be when he stood face to face with four people blocking the entrance to the grocery store he wanted to enter. He just wanted to get some more washing powder for his bloody gloves, but one of the four suddenly charged him with a lead pipe while blinding him, which prompted him to launch the offender into the nearest brick wall.
The other three instantly scattered, but where one of them ran away in silence, the other two screamed their lungs out, and in his annoyance he dropped them both to the ground with two consecutive taps on the shoulder, taking care not to break too many bones.
He found the last one hiding under a bridge and, seeing his sorry state, decided to give him some money and, seeing as though he almost committed a crime, some advice, which altogether made for a job well done in his book.
Blast took off his black glasses and plopped down on the couch inside his rather messy apartment. His hero suit had been replaced by some casual jeans and a tight-fitting black T-shirt that, combined with the relaxed expression on his face, made one think of an office worker finally having a day off after working overtime for a month straight.
A can of an unidentifiable beverage slowly floated towards his stretched-out left hand as he turned on the TV sitting on a small cabinet two meters away with his right.
He took a big sip and let out a content sigh as he skipped past broadcast after broadcast until he reached the evening news.
"The hero that was reported to have stopped over a hundred crimes happening all over Musutafu has finally been identified. A victim of one of the crimes where the hero interfered managed to tell us that he goes by the name of Sitch, but spoke of his hero name as 'Blast'. However, shortly after the interview was concluded, we received news from the H.P.S.C. that he is not a hero at all. According to their statistics, he has killed several villains in what can only be described as a brutal fashion. It is unsure where he ca-"
Blast could only stare at the screen in disbelief.
"Shit."
And that concludes yet another chapter of this little story of mine. Longer than usual, but don't expect chapters this long to be popping up more.
If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and I'll see if I can answer them without giving anything away.
That will be all for this week. Hopefully, I can write the next chapter quicker than I did this one.
Thank you all for reading, and until next time.