TWICE AS STRONG – CHAPTER 1

It was a tiring day at the construction site. Exhausting no doubt, but as Jin saved his tools and helmet, he only needed to glance at the poster of the No.1 Hero inside his locker to raise his spirits.

"Hey, Bubaigawara-sempai, want to get some beers with the guys?" asked one of his workmates.

Being called sempai felt so weird even now, it reminded him of how old he was.

Jin smiled, slightly embarrassed. "Can't do it today. Sorry. I have to rush to my other work, pal."

Technically speaking, he could send a double with them, but that could be perceived as rude. Or, he could go with them and send a double to do his other work, but he felt troubled about doing that; putting their lives in the line while he got drunk and had a good time just felt wrong.

Fortunately, the guy didn't question him. "Oh, well." He shrugged, already accustomed to Jin being somewhat reserved. "Another time, maybe?"

He nodded with a sheepish smile, knowing that probably wasn't going to happen any time soon.

(…)

Twice´s mind had always been quite restless, to say the least. It was something that came with his Quirk… Or maybe he was just going a bit crazier every day.

'For how long have we been doing this? Almost half of our life, you freaking idiot!' In only some months, it would be the twentieth anniversary of his not-too-legal second work.

Today, the main him chose Hosu to operate.

Even after so many years since the Hero Killer's arrest, his ideals still ran strong but twisted beyond recognition, reduced to a lame excuse for antisocial individuals to commit crimes. So things were still hectic in the district, especially in its poorest parts.

Navigating through a dark alley, it didn't take him much to find a drug dealer in the middle of a trade.

"Hey, you, stop right there!" He pointed accusingly at the two men, as his doubles surrounded the area without them noticing. "I'm going to kick your ass!"

"What the fuck?" The dealer, a buff shady-looking man with a hoody, scowled. By his posture he seemed to be the violent type; the kind that didn't have anything to lose or was just too stupid to give up and cut his losses.

Meanwhile, the client, a sickly-looking teenager, didn't waste a second to run from the scene.

Twice let him go. That kid probably had enough shit to deal in his life already. Just in case, a double followed after him, though, maybe they could talk some sense into the teen or at least make sure he got home safely.

"This is the third time one of you, stupid heroes, meddle into my business." The dealer grunted while glaring at him.

"Heroes?! Us? You are a bit too off!" His duplicates revealed themselves, blocking all exits. "Compliments won't get you anywhere, fatty!"

"Clones...? You are that fucking crazy vigilante, Two Times!"

"It's Twice, and we are not crazy! We are fucking rabid dogs and you're our dinner! So try your worst!" About ten doubles rushed to the criminal, intending to overwhelm him with their number. It was the only thing Twice could do without knowing the Quirk of his opponent.

But that plan went crashing down when the man took out a weird-looking syringe and, without hesitating, stabbed it into his arm. "Don't mind me if I do." He roared, wind suddenly concentrating around him.

The man half turned, extending his right arm to Twice and the left one towards the other end of the alley. His hands were open so he could see the holes in the center of his palm. 'Oh, fuck'.

A powerful attack of compressed air was shot from each arm, destroying Twice´s doubles and blasting him away.

"T-that was rude!" He got back on his feet as the crook used his Quirk to propel himself towards Twice. "I fucking hate Trigger, SO MUCH!"He duplicated himself as much as he could and tried to catch the man in his fall, but it was a total failure; just like a bowling ball doing a strike.

And the clone massacre continued.

"You hit like a little girl!" That Twice lost his head.

"Us and our stupid rotten luck!" That one got a hole in his stomach.

"You are really bad at picking differences, are you? Mwahahaha! LOSER!" That one broke his legs.

"Just die for a goddamn time!" The guy´s arms were like Gatling guns destroying anything living he could see. But he was so enraged, that in the chaos of doubles crashing around violently and duplicating before dying, the guy failed to notice the Twice who escaped from the scene... That one was also a double.

Twice knew his opponent was strong, a bit too much even for him and his many but not that resistant clones. It would be different if they were in an open place, but in that tight alley, even getting close to try to hit his opponent would be difficult as long as that stupid trigger made his attacks so monstrous.

But Twice wasn't going to let the bastard escape either, so he made his new mission to keep him busy and endure until backup arrived.

Backup from whom? Twice had no idea. Anyone who could help, even pro-heroes, he would receive them gladly. He preferred being arrested to just dying.

So Twice kept standing up, and kept duplicating and throwing jabs at the guy, who was so consumed by the Trigger-induced rage that kept attacking instead of just leaving.

"DAMMIT!" A lot of wind focused between the guy´s outstretched arms, shooting a mini twister at Twice. It felt like being struck by a bus.

His whole body hurt, but especially his head. He felt dizzy and disoriented. ´Seriously? A concussion?! I guess we´ll die, then.' He had no more strength on his limbs, nor could make much sense of what the wind guy was saying. He was probably just mocking him and being all smug about his victory, anyway. So who cared?

But then something happened, he could hear steps. Someone arrived. ´Backup? Thank god!´. Wind guy seemed pretty annoyed at first, but an instant later he went scared shitless. Okay, that´s funny!´.

Flashes of green danced around, and before he could realize how, the opponent that caused him so many problems had been defeated.

´Well done, greenie! We could have done it ourselves, though. So don't let it go to your head!

A bit more green. And then black.

(…)

Twice´s consciousness came and went away a pair of times before he could finally awake.

"Where we are?" He stood up and looked at his surroundings. He was alone -no criminal or greenie around- and definitely not in the alley anymore. There were no walls around and he could easily see the dark blue of the night sky, Hosu´s tall buildings at the distance. "I'm on a rooftop, what the heck? Did we finally went psycho and started doing weird shit while asleep?! Oh, well." He shrugged.

Suddenly, a noise of someone landing behind him.

"Um, are you okay?" A female voice called him gently. Twice turned around in a panic, and paled as he recognized the woman in green standing there. How could he not, when he saw her all the time on TV and inside his locker. "Sorry, I had to go for a moment to leave that guy in the closest police station. It's your head fine? Does it hurt?"

Despite her bunny-like mask, he could distinguish her friendly green eyes. And without being revealing, her green jumpsuit made clear the pro-hero could rip him apart with just a finger if she wanted. Why of all the thousands of heroes in Japan we had to cross with her?!´

"Dekiru," he said, his throat feeling as if he had swallowed sand. It was definitely her, the current No.1 Hero and Symbol of Hope. ´And she is staring at us! We are fucking death meat!

He felt his legs go jelly, and he wasn't even sure how much of that was because of fear or the fanboy-ism he may or may not have for the heroine in front of him.

She nodded. "And you are the duplicating vigilante, Twice!" She sounded eager, which wasn't helping him to feel less nervous.

With her kind personality, he had always considered her one of the most approachable heroes out there, but now that she was in front of him as he was in his vigilante persona, he just wanted to run.

"Us?! No." He shook his head furiously. "Definitely NO! You got the wrong people, kiddo!"

Dekiru tilted her head. "I saw you in recordings. That black-and-white costume of yours is quite difficult not to recognize."

´What does she want with us…? Maybe she is an admirer! Yeah, right, AS IF!' Dekiru was a pro-hero and he was technically a criminal. So it didn't require a genius to know what she wanted from him.

But he didn't want to go to jail, and he respected heroes too much to attack one on purpose, especially her. So that only left him one option to get out of this.

"Sad´s Man Parade!" Twice started duplicating without control, each double fully aware of what they had to do. "NOW RUN, BITCHES! RUUUUUN!" They turned around and sprinted to the rooftop´s edges, preparing their grappling hooks to jump to the nearby buildings.

"Wait−!" Dekiru yelled, worry in her voice, but they ignored her.

It was a chaotic enough situation to give the main Twice a chance to escape. But trying to jump from a rooftop to another while you have a mild concussion wasn't precisely easy, so he found himself missing his shot and falling.

Twice yelled as the ground got closer and closer, until a flash of green rushed at him, and suddenly he was back at the rooftop.

Dekiru had saved him, but now he was at her mercy.

"That was dangerous, Twice-san! Please don't do something like that again until you are fully recovered!" Despite scolding him, she sounded relieved for his wellbeing.

"EH?! W-what?!" He squirmed, trying to escape from her hold. For someone who was barely over 160 cm, she seriously had a terrifying iron grip. "Hey! Bad touch! BAD TOUCH!" This was bad. To begin with, she wasn't supposed to be able to tell which Twice was the main one so easily, but she did anyway. ´We were fools to think we could escape from her! Now we are going to rot in prison forever! YAY!

"S-sorry!" To his utter surprise, Dekiru just let him go. She seemed embarrassed, but there was no hostility or sense of apprehension in her whatsoever. "I just couldn't let you get hurt again."

He backed up a couple of meters and stared at the woman, unable to understand what she was thinking.

Heroes weren't so nice towards vigilantes. Even the ones who weren't secretly huge bastards were still really wary towards people like him.

"Why aren't you capturing us? We don't like mind-games, you know?!"

"I'm not going to arrest you," she said as if it was something obvious.

"You won't? Why?! Can you pinky-swear it?" If he were smarter, he would just escape before she changed her opinion, but he was a bit too curious -and dumb- to do that.

"You are stopping criminals and villains from hurting innocent people. That's not a crime."

"Well, that's good! Being a vigilante it's kinda illegal, though−!" He covered his mouth, trying to ignore how Dekiru chuckled. "I guess I'll go, then. Bye-bye, bunny!"

"Eh? Wait!" She got closer to him. "Before you do, I need to say something."

"Yeah…?"

Suddenly, she was nervous. And a nervous Dekiru made him nervous too. "I w-want to thank you."

"Eh?" Having the No.1 Hero saying something like that felt weird. Nice, but weird.

"Eight years ago, during the villain rampage caused by the Paranormal Liberation Front, there were a lot of petty criminals and minor villains taking advantage of the chaos to try to do whatever they wanted. Some of them threatened the lives of the people on Musutafu, but you stopped them."

Twice gulped, unable to remember. His doubles were pretty much everywhere when that happened, so it must have been one of them. "Eh. We weren´t−"

"I know it probably wasn't you, the one in front of me right now, but one of your clones. That doesn't change anything." She sounded serious but still gentle. "If all of you hadn't decided to intervene that day, many people would have died… One of them could have been my mom or the parents of a friend. For that reason, I'm really thankful." She bowed deeply.

"A-ah, I see. It was no problem, though! Anyone in my place would have done the same!" He scratched the back of his head, feeling embarrassed. "It's not as if I feel happy for what you said or anything!" Even after so many years saving people and stopping criminals, he still wasn't used to being thanked for his work, probably because most of the time he left before people had the time to calm down and say anything.

The fact this thank you came from someone he couldn't but admire just made him the more flustered. "Not anyone, Twice-san. It was just you."

"O-okay, I gotta go!" He gave her a salute. "Remain sharp and keep kicking asses, kiddo!" Not wanting to ruin the good perception Dekiru apparently had of him, he rushed towards the rooftop´s door. Normally he´d have used his hook to make a cooler exit, but knowing himself, he´d probably mess up and fall again, so he better took the stairs.

"Ah, I'll do! You take care too, Twice-san!" She yelled, and as he was going down the stairs he kinda heard her mumble something like, "I'm not young enough to be called like that, though".

Despite the headache he ended up having later that night, he felt happy about having met Dekiru in person. He was going to presume SO MUCH about it to the Naruhata guys when he talked with them.

People say you shouldn't meet your heroes; those people were a bunch of idiots.

(…)

Okay! As you saw, I'm making a clear differentiation of Jin in his civil persona and his vigilante persona as Twice. Not only are his thoughts divided and chaotic when he is using the costume, but I also added the little tick of him referring to himself in plural. He has a reason for doing that, and it´ll be explained later.

In any case, if you are wondering, going eight years after the current manga arc, in this story Izumi would be 24 and Jin/Twice 39 years old.