Somewhere in Minato Ward…
Mineta and Stain respectively ceased their death match, abandoned in a disoriented and half-blinded state to recover from what the abrupt blackout had done to their senses of sight.
About twenty meters separated them from each other, as they stood in the thick, smoky air of a tiny roof enclosed by two taller structures. Complete darkness prevailed; even Stain's eyes, having grown used to moderate lighting, needed a gap time to adapt to this lowered level of visibility. Next to them, sparks flew in thousands from the destroyed, steaming remains of an electrical transformer. The broken wired-installation was the ground zero site of a big, unforeseen explosion that had resulted from Mineta's miscalculations.
Not my best way to highlight my badass strategic skills… he confessed to himself.
The boy had hoped to trigger a brief, seconds-long power cut – which would have concerned a fairly-small city block. During that time in the dark, he would have endeavored a bold move to turn the tide and profited from element of surprise to grape rush and pin his enemy to the ground. In his excessive haste, Mineta had over-squeezed the ball, crushing it past the breaking point. The unstable element had started vibrating excessively, over-heating to skin-burning temperatures, inflating like a supernova in terminal phase and generating lightning of pure energy.
In the resulting panic, the Fresh-Picked Hero had tossed the over-charged time bomb at the electrical installation, which had since spectacularly exploded.
Stain's facial expression was that of an imperturbable, unemotional warrior despite the discomfort in his eyes. Deep inside though, he was impressed. The energy flowing through these sticky spheres is quite stronger than I expected! The Hero Killer realized thoughtfully. If I am to reach my opponent without getting shocked, I should avoid more than one of them getting stuck on me at the same time. His whips are particularly dangerous; the energy level in these could be lethal! I must not get caught like before.
The way this thrilling combat turned out hardly had anything do to with the negligible-annoyance of a run-in his previous encounter with Gentle Criminal had been, according to Stain. This small-time wannabe villain had once abused his power to seek glory and remembrance, but without Stain knowing and therefore acknowledging him looking for a way to figure his own demon out. Whereas Mineta was a redemption-craving man openly owing up, who had tussled with death for somebody else's sake, all the while lasting longer than could be expected of him, now throwing it all out to be a decent hero again. The question of knowing who qualified as the worthier problem to address, and who'd revert back to being less of an annoyance and whatnot, had been solved for good.
Merely had Gentle become an optional side, an accessory quest in the anti-fakes campaign.
Stain had brought many bad surprises upon himself, by dint of underestimating an opponent and accusing him of seeking survival at the cost of his courage. And it was worth enduring them, until he reaches the end of this ever-lengthening tunnel – at the end of which Mineta's lights of hope flickered, but his true power would shine as bright as a dying star.
Still facing him whilst rubbing his vision-deprived eyes, the dwarf boy was in a similar state of tactical analysis. My hands ache like I spent a week watching porn without missing a bit! he kept the philosophical analogy for himself. This is what happens when I squeeze the juice out of my balls like a frustrated nut; all I get are thousands of people asking for a discount on their next electricity bill. I should think twice, next time I try to Bakugo someone out of existence…
He slapped himself to chase the caustic self-deprecating humor away.
"What's got into you?" Stain called out. "Knocking some respect into you is my job, not yours."
"I try to unpervert myself, you fool."
It sounded so puerile Stain didn't smile at the reflection, sticking to doing it internally.
"Listen to yourself…"
"You don't know my life, ok?"
"I know it is to end very soon."
"Sure thing, over my dead b…oh fuck, not again!"
Stain was about to put this back and come to blows again, when the stiffened racket of a swirling machine with rotating rotor blades caught his glance.
The grasping eyes of media were here for them; so much for secrecy. For the first time since their confrontation started, neither fighters were looking at each other. As a matter of fact, both stared with annoyed eyes at the HNA helicopter hovering in circles above them.
Protruding from a passenger seat, the head of a well-known reporter emerged, her lips near-pressed against a mic. The female, ash dark magenta-haired TV news reporter in a blue suit had previously covered the now-legendary, but fateful All Might vs. All for One battle. She was doing the same again, this time offering a younger snarky-mouthed boy with grapes and his final-boss-leveled enemy countrywide audience. Probably was she having indecent fun commenting on the student's peculiar, uncanny physical size and characteristics – drawing links with his public appearance at the Sports Festival.
She was pretty, though.
"Do. Not. Stare!" Mineta forced his eyes down, out the sexy angle. "You better go back to playing rough-and-tumble with Stain before the old ways got the upper hand."
The whims of lust had seemingly fallen beneath Mineta's dignity line, but the customs guarding the frontier of decency had hard work to do preventing a now deemed-illegal lecherousness from migrating back into him. If anything, giving up on being a pervert - in his might, body and soul – would still not be enough to tame his impulses. The best he could do was to continue to hide his dirty self stronger than ever. Then, he'd probably forget that his hormones were not done objectifying women, and believe in his chance not to relapse so soon, if not in no time.
Probably. My story not being canon doesn't mean I can stop doing my utmost to be like what I should canonically be, he said to himself. Don't know why I'm saying that…
In the meantime, another strange phenomenon had both fighters raise an eyebrow. Why were there so many birds flying over them? Mineta did not link it to anything or anyone in particular. For at this moment, a terrible assessment of unthinkable proportions was tormenting his mind.
They can see me…they can fucking see me!
Shots by shots, images of his combat were been broadcasted everywhere around Japan, perhaps all over the world and its four corners. Simultaneously, thousands of clear-colored particles progressively dotted the urban horizon, in a gradation of window lights climbing up buildings and converging toward his position. Auxiliary power plants had taken over electricity distribution, and power was gradually restored around town - one district after the other.
In the neighboring areas close to the explosion site, including the Might Tower, darkness still prevailed for the time being. But the world was no longer blind to his actions.
The boy knew what it meant: soon enough, the Earth would be made aware that Minoru Mineta, a student from U.A. High School, was the only one in the world taking on the Hero Killer and would most likely be his next and forty-second victim. The hell are the others doing? Are all Pro-Heroes so busy playing celebrities they will fail me, as they failed my father? Why not just join Stain instead and becoming his fucking apprentice?
His anger died out quickly when his eyes brought his boiling brain new data.
Far away, on the distant urban horizon, some illuminated street portions shined brighter than others did. The night was too thick for the blaze smoke to be visible, but the way the light flashed left no room for doubt. It wasn't a product of the city power being unevenly redirected, but hotbeds for villain activity and their incendiary celebrations of Stain's rise to prominence again. In these highly-populated zones, more people were at risk of meeting a burning end than there had been clones in Mineta's dreams. The more fires were started, the more civilians had places to run away from, the more sources of trouble popped up, and the more heroic workforce was required to dry them up.
The lonely boy's survival wasn't a priority. Theirs were. Mineta could understand that.
But even then, nobody would leave him alone. His departure was supposed to be private, out of respect for the school to whom he did not want unnecessary attention drawn. His plans to ensure nobody noticed him, as he bowed out and passed on with a one-on-one last stand, were fizzling out.
In his own carelessness, intoxicated by the exhilarating adrenaline rush, Mineta had made his precocious retirement from hero life public. He had once again ruined it all, just to save two individuals who could have fled on their own just all well. All he had to do was hold Stain off, wait until Gentle awoke and their departure. Instead, he had taken to the outside world.
Whatever happened next, U.A. would pay the penalty.
If Mineta died, the disappearance of a student would weaken the High School reputation for their failure to protect him. If Mineta survived, the mainstream press and media would blame it on the teachers for their inability to ensure his safety. If he informed newspapers of his resignation – or if U.A. downright expelled him on the spot before cameras – there would be consequences to pay the cost of as well. Whatever he did that involved being caught red-handed by the eyes of society, he was redundantly responsible in any way whatsoever. And he had just gotten caught.
It was his fault. Always had been and would be yet another time again.
Getting to this point, just because he wanted to disappeared but failed too, was pathetic. Why bother living, when he could have fled right after learning to walk? His mother would not be evil. His father wouldn't be dead. They would still be happy…or, wouldn't they?
The ending sucked anyway, it was bad and it sucked hard. So much for trying. It wasn't worth it after all. So, while he was at it, down at the bottom, it no longer served a purpose to run. Consequences would happen for a fact. Doing his best to limit their expanse was nothing bad.
He had to get a grip. He had to go all-in and defeat Stain. Yes, he had to. For what it was, he had to. Mineta would win this fight.
Even if he died winning. I won't leave full of regrets. If I am to leave embers behind me, they will burn you out, Stain!
Asui and Aizawa had parted ways to conduct their researches separately.
While the Rainy-Season Hero paced up and down rooftops, surveying the distant skyline, Aizawa kept to the below streets, in search of Midoriya and Shinso, whom he had to inform of their Froppy-motivated change of plan…with a mandatory dressing-down for permitting their phones to turn a deaf ear on him.
Asui had but one instruction: not to engage the enemy, namely Stain, should she find herself on his way. As the moon rose up, she had yet to lay her tongue on the grape runaway. What's going on down there?
She returned to the streets, where unusually big crowds were gathering around public screens. Expecting news about another hero-villain conflict ending in defeat for the future Tartarus boarders, she stopped to watch and froze still like a spell had been cast. Minoru-chan! Y-you are alive!
Saying she was unequivocally astounded would have been an understatement. This show was an out-and-out model of instant-karma redemption. Her empathy toward the former harasser soared, as the Frog Girl was wholly enthralled by his performance and how well it was received.
"Hurt him bad with your whip, Hero!"
"You can do it!"
"You've got what it takes to win this fight!"
They were all behind him, pulling for the previously unknown boy. Support and waves of praises poured in - formulated in ways only legendary heroes like All Might could have dreamed of. It was but sheer folly and enthusiasm.
Her pragmatic mind got down to business to study all of Mineta's comings and goings, until she could figure them out and learn the truth about how he had changed that much.
On the live images, she just could not recognize but the traits of his body. For all the rest – starting with his facial expression – was beyond recognition. The boy wasn't afraid anymore. No tears in his eyes, no whiny posture, no fearful gestures. His attitude was defiant, his posture upright, his stance combative and his style offensive. He was in perfect control of his combat, although odds clearly were against him. Mineta no longer fled defenselessly, but he had kept his ability to run when submitted to danger intact as though it was brand spanking new.
Once an understated feature of second-hand utility, his Quirk was beyond awesome. Awesomely dangerous, so much it posed an actual threat. The villain ran around like a headless chicken, unable to reach for him. Mineta was hard work, and watching him making authentic use of his powers felt like devouring a Discovery Channel documentary about some extraordinary Quirk advancements. I am looking forward to seeing you fight like this for our next training.
Discussions about his heroic resistance to the Hero Killer were all the rage.
"Oh sweet! That boy's not rolling any punches. His Quirk is wicked!"
"Look! He's bringing out the big guns!"
"I thought discovering the first-ever specimen of speaking grapevine would be the breaking news of the day, but him defeating Stain shall be the event of the century!"
As they could see it – and hear it from the thrilled journalist's yelling voice – the boy assembled another whip and landed surgical strikes, much to the villain's wariness. The more Mineta attacked him with his descending weapon, the further Stain backed away. Why is he so afraid of it? It is interesting how Minoru-chan both alternates melee and ranged combat technics with that whip of his. That's prodigious!
Indeed, it was. And the night was just starting.
At the same time, in a conveniently close neighborhood, Aizawa-sensei returned empty-handed to Asui's last know position. Two additional boys had officially turned invisible, nowhere to be found. One Hagakure in his class was apparently not enough. But a good news was.
"Look what a mess you got yourself into, Mineta." he stared worriedly at the small screen of a restaurant packed with hero fight goers. "Unless I should pity HIM…" he thought of Stain.
The teacher was no kind to lose time watching TV, but he couldn't help having a look.
That would have seemed more than silly for a casual teacher with an insufficient sense of intuition, but Aizawa rapidly guessed it was not the first time his students and the Hero Killer crossed paths. Although he had not been here when the Hosu Chief Police had ordered the incident to be covered up – uninformed of Midoriya, Todoroki and Iida's reckless heroism – Aizawa knew his students better than he had bargained for. Something - a voice in his head - told him that even back then, the three skilled hero geniuses had not actually required Endeavor's assistance. Especially not if their preferred kinds of attacks were dealing icing, kicking or punching-styled blows.
Stain's sustained wounds that night had nothing to do with fire, further giving credit to Aizawa's suspicions that the truth was a bit more different and a bit less all about Endeavor.
Of course, he couldn't be sure of it. Nevertheless, Mineta's ferocious combat definitely didn't radiate the taste of a first-time-ever kind of confrontation with a Class 1-A element. The homeroom teacher could tell by the distrustful, excessively-careful look in Stain's eyes, that the Hero Killer would not mess with the upper crust of U.A. without a good reason to risk his life.
Good luck! Aizawa wished silently, unsure about who he was speaking to.
As absurd as could be, the atmosphere in the restaurant was sensibly the same as in the interior of a sports stadium during a final Quirk World Cup match. Fans cheering or booing, indulging in vocal excesses of all types and gaining a popcorn box's worth of overweight. It didn't look so morally sound, and people with a strong ethical fortitude would have been likely to vomit from the decadent sight of such entertainment industry. Aizawa may as well have unleashed his capturing cloths, to smash the screens to righteous silence and earn himself a one-way ticket to peace of mind again – had he not been burdened with more urgent matters.
In their defense though, the U.A. Student's battling reflexes were breathtaking, and he actually was putting up an impressive show. Rarely had a teenager with such a fine caliber been that good to watch and hear.
At one point in the "game", a reporter's camera zoomed in.
It showed a magnified close-up of Stain in a bothersome face-off, following a bad encounter of his katana with a powered ball. Steel had excellent conducting properties, hence causing the weapon to have conveyed a painful shock right into Stain's arm and depriving him of his deadly weapon. Time was for revenge. The villain climbed a portion of the wall above the boy, drew the spare knife under his sleeve to surprise his opponent and stooped vertically on Mineta.
Terror flared up in the small restaurant swarming with heroes supporters. It was short-lived.
To Stain's dismay, the boy had anticipated the treachery – negating the effect of surprise - and hidden a nasty secret beneath his folded arms: a curled-up whip, the end of which Mineta let go without prior notice. It violently impacted onto Stain's left cheek, sending him against a wall.
Scenes of jubilations ensued. Aizawa sighed in relief, but he had a much harder job to do trying to moderate his admiration for his brilliant pupil. It felt like a dream come true. That deserves an A.
The tricky move gave way to another technical achievement, when Mineta successfully wrapped his whip around the Hero Killer, to disable him and possibly suffocate him into unconsciousness. Maybe I should reconsider how I literally do the same to unruly students with my own Quirk, Aizawa pondered. Especially now that I know one of my students can do it too.
If they became charged up on time from a distance, the dozen balls forming the whip would fry him alive. Fearing for his life, Stain exploded in pure rage, muddled on to get up, struggled fanatically, and broke the chain-like rope of balls by ridiculously inflating his muscles. Some of them remained stuck to his skin, but he did not mind. His prey had become a predator as well, posing such a threat to his life – Mineta had almost finished him off with an SM tool – that maintaining constant surveillance and anticipating his every move was no longer optional.
The two faced each other and stood by mutely, as if there was a crushing pressure on their next punchline. A spotlight highlighted the scene for picture-takers to immortalize. Aizawa left the restaurant; watching an ocean of pixels in high-resolution would not save the one it reconstituted.
Suddenly, a startling twist of event transpired. Mineta looked blankly into the main camera – the one from the helicopter. The reporter went silent, so did most watchers in town. Had he something to say? No. To do? Yes.
Aizawa turned back upon hearing the overcrowded inside of the restaurant erupting in stupefaction, as the many eye-witnesses saw something surreal.
Mineta hopped as high as he could, tore two balls off his head, stuck them against the sole of his shoes while in-flight, repeated the operation for his hands, grabbed onto an ever higher building like a professional climber and ascended at a racer's speed.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is incredible!" the female reporter's strident voice screeched. "The Hero known as Minoru Mineta has started climbing up the Might Towner! Oh…look! It seems the Hero Killer is doing the same, planting his own blades into the windows to climb after his prey!"
The ascension was a succession of mighty feats from both sides of the engagement.
Stain had the psychical strengths to hold until he conquered the top of the city, although the life of a single heretic still evaded his hand of justice. His indomitable will would not let him down in the middle of a rise to his 42nd crusade trophy.
Mineta, however, was tired of overusing his elbow grease. Climbing faster by the sole power of his critically-exhausted limbs was not a good idea. For a while, he hung on as hard as he could. What I'm here for is at the top of these walls, but it's higher than a Mt. Lady giving another Mt. Lady a leg up to climb the Tokyo Tower! Think, Mineta. Think…I should ask this sexy reporter to give me a lift, or land her helicopter up there to taxi me out of this mess.
His upper muscles were near-extinct inside. He would not make it. Unless he drew upon his brain and leveraged whatever gymnastic virtuosities his yet-to-be-fully-harnessed Quirk would allow him to perform.
The boy plucked multiples balls at a frenetic rate. He piled them up above his skull, sticking them into a dense, protuberant excrescence. Keeping two spheres for himself, he climbed until he reached a decent height above, slumped back down on the outgrowing heap of balls. As his backside made contact, a Quirk-specific gravity law propelled him meters higher where he clung to the wall with the spheres in his hand.
He repeated the trick as many times as needed and speed-bounced his way up. It proved more than handy to put his worn-out arms to rest. Walls are meant to be climbed over! Plus Ultra, bitch!
From the moment his intelligence participated in the workshop, he shone with his inventiveness and the pure moment of elegance it brought to the screen.
"Don't get too fussy. Take your time!" he taunted a lagging Stain.
As he got a head start near the highest part of the tower, the overhanging last level prevented him from jumping atop – or he would bump his head and end up with the tallest lump ever.
His sore muscles had recovered. His whips-turned-climbing vines were once again the guest stars of his stunts. Mineta looked up, targeted the jutting summit edge, shot the ball-made rope up ahead and onto it – in a manner reminiscent of an arachnid webbing its way along a surface.
"He is Spider-maning his way up the Might Tower! That guy is out of this world!"
As he clung to his spheres, their adhesiveness greatly helped reduce the physical demand, and he moved up the floor-to-ceiling picture windows almost effortlessly.
There was not much left to do to support him. He would not hear anything through non-interactive flat screens. Aizawa left soon afterward. His eyes went up in the cut-out sky, on the look-out for flying frogs. Whenever he saw her, he waved and launched himself at her pursuit.
Asui had already heard about the grape boy ascending the tallest city building.
While on her way, her heart was beating fast. Not out of anxiety, but ecstatically. "Smol" teen Mineta had evolved into a full, fine young man. He was all grown up, to some extent. Knowing it filled her with rapture. Her strong emotions were resonant with her younger siblings. Asui's desire to help and protect those she took pride in watching, as they grew, rocketed hundred times as much. Mineta had found the motivation to move forward to a better horizon where efforts bore fruits. She yeaned to be close to him when his own finally paid off.
With her around, he would not go back. All the way to victory. Plus Ultra!
The final showdown started like a far-west duel – without the tumbleweeds, dust and cactuses.
Mineta and Stain stood still, meters apart from each other, under the giant planet and its dual rings crowing the Might Tower. Pro-Heroes had yet to come, as they were busy dealing with the many budding villains, petty thugs and hardcore Stain supporters stirring up trouble in support of their idol. The HNA helicopter and its sole live-recording camera was the default VIP eyewitness, through which millions watched anxiously.
In less than an hour of intense fighting, so many things had changed.
Stain had formerly been a guerrilla extremist, specialized in timed surgical strikes and targeted attacks in the shadow, over in a matter of minutes before reinforcements arrived. When he took on a target, only one pair of eyes would witness him coming. That day however, the Hero Killer had sprinted halfway across a gigantic city in pursuit of a teenage boy, based solely a subjective account of his flaws and all the while still failing to get at him. He was far from the unpopulated areas where most of his attacks usually took place.
More people had – and still were watching him in action than a million times his death toll.
"I have never faced such an enemy before!" he confessed aloud, the wheezing noise of his gasping, air-craving lungs being heard for the first time ever. "Since I met you, nothing went according to my plans. Everything turned sour to results I had not expected, even less wanted. Who exactly are you, Fresh-Picked Hero?"
His opponent had correspondingly changed within a sixty-minute interval of time.
Mineta had purged himself from his desire to give up on life. Back into action, the brand new hero's behavior had completely transformed into stable self-confidence. Whatever was left of the fearful boy coming before Stain to ask for judgment, and punishment by the blade, had either vanished or mutated beyond recognition.
"You already know the answer, Stain. I am going to kick your ass. Some people are watching us right now and they long to see you bite the dust. Easy as ABC, done in a jiffy."
Mineta ignored everything of the colossal viewing figures.
"Some people" was the final boss of all understatements. Right at this precise moment of future written History, everybody was watching. Every. Singe. One. Aizawa, Asui, Midoriya, Shinso, all of Class 1-A, All Might, U.A. High Staff, parents, casual civilians, Pro-Heroes, Villains. Even the League itself. They had stopped doing what they were doing, whenever the pictures of the two forces of nature dueling each other had surfaced on the screens. They were hanging onto whatever the two antagonists would say or do, as if their next heartbeat or breath depended on it.
How Mineta's Quirk had evolved, from sticky balls to build-ups of statics to bombing the living hell out of his enemies, made people more talkative than they ever had been. Was it some kind of external add-on like One for All? Was it a mechanical implant? Was it magic, genetics, mutation, the first X-teen? These grenade-like adhesive spheres and blue-colored bolts were the surprise menu of the day.
Killua Zoldik isn't my only idol anymore…Kaminari realized.
Nobody felt like speed-watching them. Stain and Mineta enjoyed global attention. Their next move or word had the power to trigger a new World War, or to bring it to an end.
It was up to them.
"How pretentious are these words, Fake. I cannot accept them from someone who has been doing nothing but fleeing for his life. I did not fight a warrior tonight, but a coward."
This was not what many had been the witnesses of. More than one felt like catcalling Stain, refraining from doing so as the crushing tension in the air made people excessively nervous. One unwelcome noise could have them miss a vital line. The only game they played was the quiet one.
Stain was only provoking his opponent, matter-of-factly. Why would a mental-driven soul like him complain about Mineta's strategic withdrawal, whereas the cunning boy had successfully played a clever trick on him to get his intended preys out of reach? The Hero Killer wouldn't have followed a false hero acting like a bratty child asking for attention, had he not sensed everything about Mineta's actions wasn't faked at all.
The answer came down to one word: the mystery surrounding the boy's true intentions.
Stain's heart was in deep worry; for the first time in his career as a martyr criminal, he was unable to see through an enemy and sense what his true intentions and potential were. Mineta's mind was in torment, a severe thunderstorm of deep transformations, which made it near unreadable. The boy was nothing like before, thereby drawing Stain further away from his own certainties about him. Something in him had awaked, and it was deadly dangerous.
The Hero Killer was scared.
"There is something you should know, Stain…" Mineta answered back, drawing from recollections of his Final Exam fight against Midnight. "I did not run from you. I lured you away from whoever you could have hurt. I did not do it to save my life, but other people's lives. Because that is what heroes do."
Stain's investigating eyes scanned the boy from head to toe. As he pondered the possible origins of the Fresh-Picked Hero in U.A., his mind reached the boiling point.
"You must be a classmate of Izuku Midoriya."
Used to, Mineta thought. His conscience went to great lengths to have him say it differently.
"Probably. Got a problem with that?"
"His own wise words just came out of your mouth." Stain noted. "A few months ago, your friend held the same position. "It's a hero's duty to meddle where it isn't their business!" he said. I agreed to that, and here we go again today, finding the same temperament and personality traits in you. In his case, Midoriya's true intentions were as candid as they were sincere. With you however, I have my doubts."
"What's the matter again? Found a misprint in my cover letter or something?" Mineta scowled sarcastically, crossing his arms in a ridiculously pouty way.
Some people laughed, others questioned themselves and Stain had his own pondering to do. That boy's code of honor looks nobler than it seems, and he originated in the same school as Midoriya. The similar beliefs they share might not be a coincidence. Maybe I was wrong about U.A…
Mineta might as well have held a Ph.D. in Fakes News. Challenging him over it was important.
"I can sense the lies concealed under that shell." The Hero Killer gave his opinion with a noticeably softer voice, challenging him by means of provocation again. "There is something in your heart you are not so proud about and desperately need to make up for. One hour ago, you casually came to me like a drunk teen who had gotten off on the wrong floor. I have never seen heroes making such an unconventional entrance, especially not while dressed as a civilian. Was it intentional? Did you give up on being a Hero and went back to being an anonymous citizen, only to find out your mind had changed?"
Stain giving a worldwide audience free lessons in philosophy was…odd, though accurate.
"It was." Mineta confessed. "Fact is, when I accidentally found you as you were about to kill two innocent people, I did not have my suit with me, and you probably wouldn't have nicely accepted to wait for me to get it back. It'd have been foolish anyway."
"The only foolish one here is you. It is a shame you won't grow up to become a mature adult and realize nobody is innocent. For that, I will have to kill you first."
"Don't claim victory too soon, Mr. I'm-not-innocent-either. It is true that I might not be able to defeat you, but do you remember what I said about hurting you bad? It is just as topical as ever."
They clenched their fists, moved their arms into a defense position and focused their every thought on the incoming clash.
"If that is what you want, I am ready to judge you! Stand guard!"
The whole city held its breath. Things were about to get serious...or not. As Stain tensed his muscles and raised his katana for a quick first strike, his enemy burst out laughing loudly and heartily, the effects of which were global perplexity behind cameras, and a nasty wince of irritation from his opponent.
"I don't find it fun–"
"Cut the judgmental bullshit, Zero Brainer!" Mineta bluntly cut him off between two outbursts, taking most watchers aback. "This is not a trial and you are no vigilante. Instead of putting the blame on others like you're the center of the world, take a look at yourself for a change!"
So much impudence in a single sentence was more efficient than adhesive tape over the mouth.
"You know, I was just kiddin' when I asked you about being judged and all the stuff! Should it happen to me one day for whatever count of indictment, it will be done by the books in a courthouse, but never will the judge be someone like you!" Mineta vociferated with quite a raised, exasperated voice. "Because you are a bloody-dangerous, narcissistic, self-centered, bloodthirsty murderous maniac, who will never let a tiny bit of humanity get in the way of his merciless convictions, is devoid of any rational thinking to the point of denying redemption to people who worked their asses off to go straight, and believes the entire universe revolves around his tainted principles!"
Mineta's anger was so intense his heart could have exploded at any moment. Stain couldn't find a proper answer; he hated the boy as an insolent enemy, but couldn't help acknowledge the point he had. The Hero Killer's principles were rock-solid and unshakable, but a dash too accommodating and multi-speed when the task of forgiving was brought into the equation.
"What should be said about you?" he hesitated. "Your pathetic manner of speaking is a proof tha–"
"I don't have no fucking innocent blood on my hands!" Mineta screamed furiously, unsettling the villain and viewers alike. "Because you have strong beliefs does not mean they are right."
A thick, excruciating silence prevailed for as long as the vehement conviction in his sharp-edged words needed to sink into the listeners' hearts. Not even Stain dared interrupt the process.
"So you want justice, huh? Can you tell me where did you see justice in killing people? Can you explain me that? Because that is all you'd bother to do!" Mineta aptly added. "Killing, murdering. Dozens of people whose lives you have ruined. People with kids, families, brothers!"
A tear streamed down Iida's face, who was watching as well. Ingenium had been one of Stain's latest non-lethal victims. While he painfully recalled his own flawed effort to right this wrong, one of his classmates was bearing the task to make sure his fallen brother would be the last.
"All these bloodsheds…only because you thought they were weak? Who are you to decide, huh?" Mineta relentlessly barked. "If people are unworthy of living because you said so, you should apply the same logic to yourself. Give it a try; you might be surprised!"
Mineta's lips fell motionless. He was done talking, so was Stain. Action was next.
The Hero Killer winced madly, and executed a series of katana gestures to move into attack position. On the opposite side, the stinking smell of perspiration was a test for his boyish contender's nostrils, and a walk to the closest laundry service would take forever; he took off, left his jacket and scarf on the floor, gave himself a second to breathe, inhaled again and rushed ahead.
"Plus Ultra!"
Stain dashed forward in turn, roaring a war cry in answer to Mineta's seemingly kamikaze-style of attack. When the two clashed, Tokyo and all its inhabitants knew only one would be still standing at the next and final break.
"I am not going to ask you to give up, boy. I know you won't, because you would rather die a hero's death! Are you sure you can assume this responsibility?"
The high concentration of intimidation in his words did not raise a single eyebrow on Mineta's stoic expression. Stain was impressed.
"Since when were you under the impression I wasn't in complete control?"
Mineta dodged most of Stain's slashes, save for one which cut into one of the balls over his bloody scalp. A trivial scratch, but still a close call.
The accumulation of blood on the outskirts of his mohawk hair definitely was a problem cropping up – now both on a short and long term. The overuse of Mineta's Pop-Off was wearing his skin out, pushing his dermal resistance beyond its furthest limits. When the Fresh-Picked Hero plucked a sphere, one every two on average had more-or-less visible bloodstains on them, which entailed a serious risk of his Quirk backfiring, the bigger they were. Mineta had to pay enough attention not to toss a faulty ball at Stain and hand him the key to his own demise.
A single licking on a tiny graze, and it was the end.
The sweaty grape-haired boy increased his speed, ducked two more attempted side blade blows, jumped and flew over Stain's exposed scalp to Grape Rush him from above. The Hero Killer made a swift motion on his right to avoid the falling rain. He then turned over and swung at the rushing boy, whom he expected to outsmart by striking him back before he could land on the ground behind him. He was surprised to see nothing but void in his field of vision. Rapid as an avalanche, Mineta had already closed the distance, by pouncing through him and sliding under his legs, while concurrently targeting his feet with a wave of balls. Stain once again dodged it with a timely set of reflexes, jumping away to a safer distance.
Close call too. He is quick, he is smart, he is strong! Stain commended him. You are worthier than I could think minutes ago. Your techniques and strategies are still a bit rough and leave room for improvement, but the raw determination that keeps you alert and alive is of heroic nature. I adore that energy.
The boy stood distant for a while, recovering his strengths and pushing back a couple of attacks with barrage fire. Several times, the Hero Killer put different breaking-through tactics to the test. He tried to slash through Mineta's sphere walls, threw some of his knives between the balls to distract him. To no avail, as the boy successfully fended him off despite the villain's sticking-out tongue coming very close to his bleeding scalp. Although it managed to exhaust him.
"Sticking your tongue out is not very polite."
Mineta's reflexes of survival were reaching their peak activity. His life was hanging by a thread.
Just as when Stain had desperately enhanced the ferocity of his movements to facilitate quicker disposal of Iida before reinforcements arrived, the U.A. Student was hanging on to any spare second of time he had to delay his ultimate defeat. The more tired he grew, the more his fighting techniques changed into a more aggressive style of defense.
"Don't you have anything clever to say? Snarky small talk isn't a hero's choice of language."
"I don't have much in mind for a murderer, I'm afraid. You do not deserve any better."
This umpteenth accusation triggered Stain's bloodlust. Whereas his mask did not fall this time, as he turned to cameras around, impassioned with rage, his malefic aura terrorized the audience and frightened them all to a fearful standstill.
"Not again!" virtually everyone gaped in horror and impotence.
He had instilled fear like seeds of sideration sowed to the four winds, crippling them to their core. Mineta was last to become the target of his malicious, death-filled glance of iron.
"You ungrateful little snot! I swear to cleanse you of your foul-mouthed mind, just like I shall reclaim the true meaning of hero from the soiled weed and purify this w–"
"Shut up."
The freezing determination and fear-striking speech flopped miserably and collapsed. Unlike what his predictions had dictated, Stain did not have the final word this time. He was the one ending up paralyzed. Not only him, but every single watcher as well.
Mineta would take things over from this point onward. In its own way, the pair of eyes in the middle of his face brought the entire audience to its knees. Not out of fear, but plainly because the boy's unconquerable force of will was downright stunning and awe-inspiring.
From birth to demise, Mineta had never been himself. Never a good, great, appreciated, loved man. Never had he enjoyed a single second of greatness. Fifteen years of repressed potential, denial of praise, refusal of love, deprivation of acceptance. He had missed out on his whole life, going through anything that could have made it worth the remembrance. A life for nothing.
It all seemed to lead to this night when Mineta was to die and be forgotten.
But there he was, wrapped in long-overdue attention, the eyes of journalists shooting a future time-stopping landmark in History books with him existing as a world of its own. A grape's last stand against a giant. A grape giving it all he had, his best, his all. Formerly trapped in the shadow of his old rejected self, a mountain of badass vibrations gone wild and unrestrained potential enjoying freedom - at last – was coming out to the light. Mineta was irrationally motivated, honored to sublimation, emotionally moved to a brand new divine level. The revolutionary moment had come for fate to bestow the ultimate right upon him: being who he truly was. Mineta had earned it. He would flood the world with greatness at once, and absolutely kill it.
He even sobbed in self-realization with newfound sincerity, enhancing his noble aura to unprecedented levels of captivation, and strengthening the never-seen-before esteem basically anyone felt for him at this once-in-a-lifetime milestone.
"I will defeat you, Stain." he snarled raggedly, his zeal for living and desire to win forcing a mute approval on Stain's wide-mouthed face. "Because I owe that to the 17 souls who have yet to rest in peace. And because 24 others haven't recovered and won't have the pleasure to pay you back in their own coin when payment due!"
"You…cannot do that!"
"I will." Mineta thundered. "You have a debt toward these people that is due for payment, I don't give credit and it's non-refundable. If you don't proceed to checkout, you will get a big interest rate increase, not in percentages but punches in your face!"
"No…"
If you watch me now Ingenium, you will like this! Mineta paid a respectful second of silence for Iida's brother. "Time to pay up, Stain! For the 41!"
Clashes of extreme violence ensued.
The boy's fortitude and bravery in battle peaked at an all-time high maximum. Strategies to face his enemy popped up in profusion. Each second of scrutinizing his geographical environment, evaluating weakness points, scrutinizing the Hero Killer's motions or processing data about what he had at his disposal came with its loads of new options. His updated brain thrived with a brilliant war strategist's life-long experience, giving him the ability to calculate his next moves as fast as a simulation computer would.
"You almost got me." Stain gasped in surprise, avoiding a ten-time faster than usual ball attack by a hair's breadth. "Try your best."
"It is yet to come!"
Brilliant ideas were aplenty in his overpowering mind, but Mineta lacked the mental discipline and organization to sort them out from least to most likely to be tested first. Was this feeling of empowerment responsible for a strange change of behavior, when the student suddenly stared blankly and his vacant eyes lost their way away from Stain's blades? It nearly had him killed.
"Then do it!" Stain insisted more aggressively, almost slashing a cut into the boy's cheek.
"Won't happen again…" Mineta pulled himself together, seemingly grabbing a ball.
The boy had an essentially good reason to be mentally mixed up as he was, recklessly stargazing at the worst possible moment.
Right in the middle of his combat, bizarre pictures scrolled before him. All taken from the life of a young adult man wearing a hat, as he expertly crossed swords with a contender during a fencing contest. The stop-motion short film was replaced with some blurrier frames, extracted from the perceptual description of a shorthaired but bright-smiled lady. Both were supposedly related to each other in some ways. Mineta had no idea why these dreamy mental projections of two strangers' past were tangling up in his mind, nor could he explain his attraction and revulsion regarding them.
Mineta shook the pictures off his mind and focused on staying alive again; it had distracted him for too long. He was flabbergasted to find a passive, standing-by Hero Killer who had ceased combat only to watch him. His perplexed eyes stared penetratingly at the elongated item the boy's right hand carried, without him knowing it existed in the first place.
"How the hell did he do that?" thousands of people screamed at the same time.
He almost jumped out of his skin, dead-scared by a metallic clank from behind him. His right arm had traced a backward movement, to build momentum while taking aim at Stain, and the upper part of a metal chimney stack had been beheaded in a single cut. Stain was not responsible for it.
"What the…"
Mineta had mistaken the content of his hand for a ball, whereas he was actually holding a purple-colored sword. The ball in question – the one Mineta had initially wanted to pluck – had come off his head as a threesome of glued spheres, which had subsequently remodeled themselves into a sharp-looking sword, hardened and sliced through the chimney stack.
It had happened right around the time the boy had been thinking of such weapon, in parallel with the vision of the fencing champion in his head. How the hell did I do that? he wandered too. Didn't know I could handcraft cool stuff with my brain. Thank goodness, I did not unlock this bonus power back when my thoughts were dirty!
Concurrently, a radiant halo glowed weirdly around the boy's bodyl ines. His sparkling eyes radiated an impression of such powerfulness that Stain took a step back. Only news reporters didn't refrain from spewing running commentaries into the suspenseful atmosphere, for the sake of it.
"What kind of drug did he take this morning? He just materialized a sword out of his skull! This is pure madness! That little unsung hero is a real knockout and-"
"Would you shut up!" Stain yelled at the helicopter.
"Thank you." Mineta sighed in reluctant approval.
The rotating flying machine silenced itself. For the next ten minutes, an action-packed, testosterone-filled sequence of ferocious sword-fighting invaded worldwide screens.
The two warriors measured blades bravely. Their epic standoff by the ancient ways of the knights stirred up passions among viewers. It was so unreal, so supersonically fast that their greedy eyes struggled to follow. Mineta's self-built sword was quickly joined by younger siblings of his own design. As Mineta pulled a single ball off his scalp, a tactical approach in his mind dictated his creative thinking to form a whip. Wish granted.
Time after time, he magically created weapons of his choice to fit his needs, pushing the Hero Killer back into a more defensive stance. Perhaps it had something to do with the epee-wielding ghost man, but Mineta most likely had his DNA rewritten to make a fantastically skilled swordsman out of the undersized, puny teenage dwarf. Thank you, sir.
The inspired boy's physical strengths had also emerged more ironclad than ever.
While taking on Stain with his sword, Mineta's remaining free hand tossed balls at him. It no longer was a mere throw of sticky spheres at moderate speed, but a deadly hail of bullets. As he machine-gunned Stain, many balls damaged and lodged themselves into the ground, digging holes in the reinforced concrete. Reshaped into a cylinder-like object by its collision with air, one lucky sphere - sprayed at lighting speed - nicked Stain's side. It left a slight notch, from which no blood came out as the sticky remains obstructed the hemoglobin flow.
Thankfully for Stain, it wasn't electrified. At one point, the burst of bullet balls tore his cape apart and ripped it off his back. Had he not trained himself to dodge at a ridiculous speed, he would be shredded cannon fodder by the time Mineta paused to "reload" his sore arms with energy.
I am the one judging you now, Stain! Is your life worth being spared? Mineta viciously stared daggers at the Her Killer with his darkest aura. Yes. You can live, but not as a free man.
From their desks at U.A., teachers and high staff could not take their eyes off what they were watching. Anxiety had them glued to the wide-resolution screens, displaying one of their students fighting for his life.
"Mineta…" Midnight whispered. "What you're doing is so youthful! It is true I love to see you running away, especially from me, but just this once…please don't lose!"
Hopefully, Mineta would soon join the chosen ones to make up the list of honorable High School alumni. Hope was as efficient a way to pray for his victory. All Might's restless mind overflowed with the remembrance of his last great moment of glory. "Hollow cheeks and sunken eyes! What is that pitiful back?" All for One had relentlessly berated him.
The former N°1 Hero had endured the worst insults, but hadn't failed. Standing in his shoes at the center of attention, Mineta was not being subjected to such a flow of belittlements. They had come in plenty numbers before, lasting for a longer time All Might would ever bear the shame of. Only for that, the grape boy deserved the most scintillating of all triumphs.
"Remember why you clench your fists, young Mineta. After all these struggles to become what you truly are deep inside, it would be a shame to die now. Hang on! Plus Ultra!"
So believed Recovery Girl, confident in the boy's likeliness of achieving success.
"Thinking it through, wanting to be popular with girls was not a goal Mineta could focus on the long term. Defeating a legendary villain and becoming a legend himself are. Who would have believed he, of all students, would do that? He had me completely fooled once again."
Stain now had an apposite name. His face was, indeed, stained all over. With sweat and dirt. That duel would go down in his memory as one of his greatest ever fought, but the end was close. Seconds away. I'm done in.
He plowed through Mineta's most defended personal space. Slow but steady. The boy had committed his first true mistake.
In a moment of distraction, he had inadvertently offered the Hero Killer an inevitable angle of attack. Near unlimited power, or so he had overestimated his mind-creating abilities, had gone to Mineta's head and lulled him into a false sense of security. Stain had eventually cut into his cheek, making a small incision the width of a needle, from which a thin trickle of blood barely made it out.
Even the most powerful Quirk in the world wouldn't outperform years of good experience. Regardless of his incredible sharpness in battle, keenness to win, willful punching power, quick-witted intelligence and well-mastered agility, Mineta was about to lose.
Stain had the upper hand.
"Grape Rush!"
As a last demonstration of heroic determination, the boy valiantly kept Stain under heavy fire.
One of his balls successfully snatched the katana off his hands. Midnight's dominatrix whip had been a custom-fitted drill for target practice; the student had learned proficiently from his hard work at the exam. He threw whatever content he could harvest off his bleeding scalp on the bladed weapon – bombing it blindly until a carpet of spheres utterly blanketed the katana.
It seemed to work; never would Stain be able to lick that. Except for one little detail…
The adrenaline rush had deprived Mineta of both his danger-sensing abilities and his most painful sensations. Starting with the suffering from his blood-streaked head, which he had completely omitted to pay attention to. The Fresh-Picked Hero had trained hard to strengthen his Quirk the best he could, but not a single power in the world existed in limitless edition.
Overusing it, by continuously shelling Stain's position without counting ammunitions, came at a cost. Almost each of his latest-flung balls was partly – or totally soaked with blood. The stained spheres having been tossed at great speed, tiny samples of the precious bodily liquid had detached in mid-air and poured down in droplet showers on the floor.
A perfect site to collect and suck it safely, without getting one's tongue stuck to an adhesive matter. Looks like this is "game over"! Mineta forebodingly concluded.
Rushing headfirst into direct, close combat would be futile. Throwing more projectiles too. Mineta's only remaining option was to slow things down, and delay the fatal date of his passing by Stain's blades. By the time his death certificate would be issued, the Hero Killer would get caught before he could escape. One sacrifice to avoid others. Seems legit. Dying the way I lived.
With blatant disregard for his scalp's appalling state of pain, he defiantly tore off the remaining bourgeons of his sticky sphere, gathered them on the spot to build a makeshift trampoline and bounced away. He felt his own body falling disabled while in flight, from the moment Stain's tongue made contact with the betraying red blood cell and his Bloodcurdle Quirk was activated.
Mineta had been chastened and defeated, falling to the floor in a sign of submissive capitulation. The last remaining ball on his head fell off too, a symbolic downing of weapons.
The Hero Killer caught his breath, enjoying a motionless serenity with closed eyes for the first time since forever. He drew one of his folding knives in replacement for his katana, walked toward Mineta's helpless physical envelope in a funeral march, as it lay in a remote shadowed area. The HNA helicopter automatically redirected its spotlights in Stain's direction; a vain attempt to blind and divert his attention away. Alas. Glimmers of victory already burned in his murderous eyes.
Everybody knew he would win.
Panic spread across the city. Screams of horror rose to unbearable acoustic levels, quickly overcome by an apocalyptic silence of death. Morbid rumors, younglings having their innocent eyes suddenly covered, sensitives glances getting wet, teeth chattering, stiffened comments from journalists as they choked on their own anguish. Dispersed around the streets, a tiny minority of optimistic souls prayed for the grape as judgment day loomed, though the fatal outcome of this legendary fight had left scarcely any.
Not even scattered villain spectators – however rejoiced or caught into the unsustainable suspense – dared trouble the silence. It was all over. The Hero Killer nevertheless decided to claim his forty-second trophy with a different kind of finishing move.
He folded his knife back and put it away, opting for the throwing knife instead. Mineta had proven a tricky opponent and each second lost could give him a chance to survive. Disposing of him from a distance was not only be safer, but quicker before all. Stain took aim, ready for final execution, but all the while hesitating. As he wiped the blood off his lips, no victorious smile flourished. The embers of murder had vanished from his eyes, cooled off by the perceived merit in Mineta's fierce defense, and how his decisively record-breaking time of resistance evidenced it.
Killing someone never had been a pleasure beforehand. This time even less.
"You have been a worthy enemy, young student. I am proud to have fought against you, even though you were not a hero yet. Perhaps, I should let you live. Because–"
"Recipro Burst!"