I'm about to move into college, so I don't know how the update schedule is going to look. I don't know how much time I'll have then, considering the fact that I'm still going to be a college freshman but…
Pain.
If this will be my last chapter, just know that I did have hopes for this once. It's very unlikely that this will be the last, but just in case.
-SpiritOfErebus
"You're not like me." the hero before Iida said, sitting on an elevated rock in the middle of a grassy field, waiting for him to arrive. "You're fast… for your kind, but that's it. You're not durable… you're not strong… I do approve of the armor, though."
"Thank you." Iida said, bowing stiffly. "I, however, still doubt your comment about being a mere human. Are you not human as well?"
The great hero shouldered his spear and looked up at the clear, blue sky. The sky almost seemed to swirl around the small, grassy field that they were in, with the rock in the center as
"...Yeah, I don't want to get into that can of worms."
After the man muttered something about nature spirits and demigods, he flicked his green hair to the side, the hero jumped down from his perch and smiled, his spear spinning behind him in a way that made iida's vision blur.
"Anyways, if you really want to put that speed to use, you have to learn about momentum… And the importance of tools!"
"Tools?" Iida asked. "I don't see the relevance of-"
The spear stopped inches before his throat.
Slowly, the spear was retracted, and the hero smirked roguishly.
"Humanity's limitation has always been their fragile, fleshy bodies. People found a way around this with tools and weapons. Again, that armor isn't just for show, is it?"
Iida took mental note of his armor. It was slightly clunky, and the pipes that were tied around his waist were basically purely cosmetic. However, subtracting all of that, it did protect his vital organs and allowed for mobility of all four of his limbs, was aerodynamic enough to not produce too much heat when he was sprinting, and was made of metals that were light enough to not be a burden to carry around.
"This armor design has been around for decades in my family." Iida said. "My brother used it, my father used it, and my grandfather also used it."
"And did you ever think that it was passed down for a reason?" the hero said impatiently, "Maybe it was because it was a good design to prevent injury in the field. Though… I do notice that it's quite… not present in your upper arm.
"It was rather bothersome to perform several rescue activities with further restraints on my arms." Iida said. "I found it necessary to eliminate those pieces from the armor design."
"And what if somebody stabs through that part of your arm with a knife?" the hero said. "You're a melee combatant, correct? If you don't have overwhelming durability or the strength to instantly
"I have speed." Iida argued.
"True." the hero nodded, "But you don't have agility. How fast can you change directions?"
"Not as fast as I'd like." Iida muttered.
"And thus, you'll need one of these." the hero said. A spear materialized out of nowhere, and fell into his hand. "If any opponent simply swerves out of your way, well…"
Iida felt the metal shaft and gave it an experimental spin, just like the foreign hero had done earlier in the conversation. It almost jumped out of his hand, the tip pinging off of the hero's opened left eye, before it clattered to the ground.
"...Nevermind." the hero sighed. "You're going to need a lot of work on this."
…
"Come on, come on!" the hero shouted. "Faster! Be more mobile! Use your speed to leverage your spear!"
Iida's feet crunched upon the fallen skulls of the skeleton he had already disassembled. They were surprisingly fragile, but their sheer numbers made up for it.
Sweat made his skin feel slick as he shifted within his armor, the padding and the steel plates feeling more and more like actual burdens than pieces he had put there himself.
His arms twirled in a practiced motion, the spear shearing across the skulls of the endless horde.
"You're still not getting it, are you?" the hero sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in irritation and shaking his head. "I swear, the goody-two shoes type never really gets it."
"I'm… trying… sir…" Iida panted, stabbing yet another skeleton through the ribcage, before wrenching his spear out. The ribs clattered to the growing pile of bones as the spear tip was forced through the gaps inconveniently.
It was slightly disturbing, having to fight skeletons. However, given their slightly cartoonish quality and the fact that these weren't actual humans… more like mobs in a video game that his older brother had played back when he was younger… it was easier on his conscience.
Besides, this was what Hans described to be a quick, twenty minute training simulation. Or was it a five minute training simulation?
Iida didn't remember anymore.
Because it had already probably been several days that had passed in his mind. And even though he probably wasn't actually exhausted, given the fact that this was a simulation… he couldn't go on anymore.
The horde felt too endless. He would never get past it and journey to where the green-haired hero had set the objective.
Amidst the now cloudy, overcast sky, illuminated by only the fires that were raging on in the distance for some reason, Iida was… giving up.
There was simply no way. He knelt, one hand still on his spear, as he looked at the objective he was supposed to reach. It just felt impossible.
Then, in front of him, skeletons were knocked away casually. A spear was spun and stabbed as an armored figure flickered around the battlefield, rescuing Iida from the sword of a skeleton descending… despite the fact that it was all a simulation and none of the damage mattered anyways.
"I thought this would have been easy for you." the hero said, sighing. "But I guess I'll give you a demonstration."
A running pose was set. The spear was held at an angle behind the hero, and Iida could see the palpable tension running down the hero's calf muscles.
Then, the hero laughed, and began to run. His spear smashed through the obstacles, utilizing his speed to almost vaporize the skeletons that he was running into. Anything that the spearhead didn't hit the man's armor would, changing his course slightly but knocking the skeleton away.
Eventually, the trail of green pierced through the endless horde, and the hero's voice echoed in Iida's ears.
"Do you think that this is unattainable for you? That this is impractical? That you'll never be able to achieve this?"
Despite knowing that the hero probably couldn't actually see him from that distance, Iida nodded, his hair dripping sweat onto his visor.
"You're not really the traditional definition of human anymore, aren't you? You have boosters strapped to your legs. You have propulsion systems that run on your bodily fluids, and you can run much, much faster than a horse. And if heavily armored knights can do this on horses, then why can't you?"
Iida said nothing.
"A hero… that's what you're trying to become, right?" the hero shouted. "Then what are you waiting for? Are the ones you're trying to save going to wait for you to act? Is the enemy that you're fighting going to stop just because you called a time out? Stand up!"
Gritting his teeth, Iida did. His helmet was stifling. His heartbeat was loud and fast. His engines were feeling the burn of using his quirk to assist his wide, sweeping kicks.
As the horde circled around him once more, he aimed himself towards the objective, leveled his spear, and stepped forwards.
One step. His engines hummed.
Two steps. His engines coughed out black smoke, before a blue light appeared down the exhaust pipes.
Three steps. Blue lights were blazing. His legs picked up the speed, and he began to run.
The skulls of the skeletons began to blur as his spear almost seemed to rattle when he held it forwards in his charge. His footing was uneven, but his speed pushed him forwards. The bones and ribs shattered when he stepped on their fallen corpses. Each body colliding with his armor shook him and threatened to make him turn out of control.
But he held steady. He angled his body when necessary. He made small adjustments, ramming through where the defenses were the weakest.
No matter what, he would make it through.
"Well, at least you're beginning to catch on now." the hero said. "And I guess I'll make something like a hero out of you… or my name isn't Achilles."
…
Iida sat up from the chair in the corner of the room, gasping for breath.
"Not the brick walls again!" he yelled. "Not the walls! I don't want to run into them!"
Enigma tilted her head and peered at Iida with a relatively concerned expression on her normally completely emotionless face.
Tensei, however, rushed over to Iida.
"Are you okay?" he said, shaking Iida. "Tenya, are you okay? Speak to me!"
"You're not a wall, right?" Iida asked, his normally serious and orderly demeanor completely frazzled.
…In hindsight, maybe giving Achilles a teaching opportunity probably wasn't the best for the student's mental health.
"You said there were no side effects!" Tensei said,
"Hey, if he's too engrossed in the simulation, it's not my fault." Hans said, shrugging. "I've tested the training simulations on three people already, and there were no lasting side effects."
Iida had completely calmed down at this point, realizing that there was nothing else that was orange in the room. The color of bricks had been burned into his mind, and he would never be the same.
"Andersen-san, why did Achilles, of all people, get incorporated as a part of this? If you were to put somebody in my training simulation, why didn't you put nii-san? His quirk is similar to mine, and we have a systematic routine of training within our own family."
"Hey, you need something like a weapon." Hans said defensively. "I don't know if you've noticed or not, but a lot of your issues during the sports festival was due to range and limited options. You only have your speed, and that's it."
"Even though I cannot deny the weapon is useful, it does not set a good example to the general public!" Iida protested. "Weapons are dangerous, and civilians should realize that!"
"Now, now." Tensei said, patting Iida on the shoulder. "Now that you're very clearly fine, do you feel like you've at least benefited from the training?"
"I see the potential applications of a spear, but I do not approve of such a violent implement!" Iida said. "However, I will acquiesce and consider including something akin to a bo staff into my required list of tools in the future, in order to better improve my combat capabilities."
"Well, at least you kept an open mind." Hans said, looking at the clock. "Wow, you've been asleep for ten minutes this time. Last time I did this, it only took about five minutes."
"And that's… lunch time." Tensei said, nodding to himself, before standing up and walking inside the cramped apartment to a box placed right next to a sink. "Who's up for some instant noodles?"
Enigma raised her hand. "I want the soy sauce flavored broth."
"Instant noodles are not a healthy option, especially considering the intensity of exercise that heroism involves." Iida said, "That being said, as we are relatively limited in option, I shall go with the beef stew flavor, if they have that."
"Two words won't do if thirty eight can be spoken, huh?" Hans said, raising an eyebrow. "I use this technique a lot, too. In writing. It pads the word count a lot."
"Perhaps, if used in a literary context, this type of dialogue will demonstrate their character." Iida seriously considered, while sitting down and putting a hand on his chin to stroke an imaginary beard. "However, in this case, you commenting this is just an attempt at insulting my manner of speaking."
"Andersen-san, what flavor do you want?" Tensei asked. "Again, we have soy sauce broth flavor, Tenya's favorite beef stew flavor-"
"Nii-san!" Iida complained. "Do not spill my secrets like this!"
"-Miso soup broth flavors, and-"
"Don't worry about it." Hans said, reaching under the small table and retrieving his backpack, revealing two tupperware containers. Setting apart one and placing the other piece of glassware on the table, the group was greeted with the indescribable smell of scrambled eggs placed inside a container for several hours.
The apartment, already being a labyrinth of smells and sounds of mold and water dripping down the pipes, was instantly impacted by the presence of the dish.
"...You know what?" Hans said, putting the lid back on the dish of cooked eggs mixed with meat bits. "I think I'll take some of that beef stew instant noodles."
As Tensei tossed him a pack, Hans tore the packaging off the noodles and held the styrofoam cup in his hands. Peeling off the plastic covering from the circular surface halfway, he made one of the Ice Queen's hands appear and filled the container with very slushy ice. Then, summoning a match and holding it to the ice, it slowly warmed until it became liquid water, and then warm water.
It was probably cleaner this way. Hans didn't know what the pipes lining this apartment were made of, or how old they were, after all.
The broth slowly bubbled as the three others in the room waiting for their water to boil slowly looked on enviously.
Hans looked at the kettle, and at his slowly bubbling instant noodles.
As he took out his phone and idly began to tap on the keyboard as a continuation to his sole venue of revenue: his webnovels.
"You were just kidnapped yesterday." Iida said, sitting down with the kettle. Enigma slowly shuffled to her seat near the corner of the room while, Tensei sat down at the head of the table. "Why are you already continuing work on your… book?"
"This world isn't forgiving." Hans said edgily. "But what's more unforgiving is a scorned web novel reader. One day without updating and they'll start grumbling incessantly in the comment sections. Some may even forget about your novel and deprive you of precious, precious internet traffic."
Enigma looked up from her own phone, where she was typing what looked like a long string of sentences into a white box below a bunch of text. She scooted slightly away from Hans and continued to type.
"Come to think of it, why do some people still have flip phones?" Hans said, looking at his relatively new device. It may be about a decade behind the shiny, new generations of phones that had more and more cameras, but it was at least a touchscreen device.
"During the troubled century, people tended to focus on… very different things." Tensei said, unpeeling his instant noodles and stabbing two chopsticks in to gauge how cooked they were. "Ah… I'm glad that we bought these along in the truck. Mine will still have to wait for about thirty seconds, though."
"They were in the truck?" Hans said, his eyes twitching. "Why didn't we eat those yesterday? We were starving on that bridge!"
"We didn't have enough water." Tensei shrugged.
Hans looked at his own instant noodles. Despite already being cooked, they were still untouched. And, more importantly, he had made them without the input of external water.
"What?" Tensei asked, slightly confused by Hans's actions.
Hans pointed at his own instant noodles, and made a small ice crystal appear on his hand, before said ice crystal suddenly turned into steam.
"Ah." Tensei said, scratching his head. "Then, we may have skipped a meal for absolutely no reason."
The four ate in silence for a while, instant noodles slurping loudly. Hans chewed on the slightly plasticy noodles, the slightly dry insides and the soggy outsides clashing horribly. Clearly, using ice to make the instant noodles was not a perfect solution.
"I guess I really wasn't considering food back when we were on the highway, you know?" Tensei said. "I've been a hero for… quite a while. I'm almost double your age, Hans."
Hans accepted this as a measurement of his physical age, not his mental age.
"And I've… seen things." he said quietly. "When you people were born, I was already in hero school, you know? When I was just fifteen, the world was a very different place."
Hans and Iida stopped slurping the noodles that they were munching on.
"Villain attacks were much more frequent back then." Tensei reminisced. "And the ruins of one villain attack? Where a lot of civilians are gathered? That was a prime target for a second villain attack."
"What?" Iida gasped. "Such dastardly behavior!"
"I don't know why this is a surprise to you." Hans said, looking at Iida out of the corner of his eyes.
"They would attack directly after another villain first took the hit from the heroes, and take advantage of the weakened everything to enact their version of revenge on society."
"I see no reason why it's different today." Hans reasoned. "I mean, I guess that was the reason you didn't start eating, right? You just had to stay vigilant."
"Yep." Tensei sighed. "Old habits die hard. And I'm an older-than-average hero now, by the industry average. A lot of the newer folks haven't really been heroes that long, and they've forgotten the era before All Might."
"...How bad was it?" Hans asked.
"Before All Might, everything was different." Tensei said, looking out of the windows. "These apartment complexes were probably built before All Might returned to Japan. It's been, what, thirty-two years?"
"Thirty-three." Iida said, correcting his brother on a pointless fact.
Enigma typed on her phone quietly in the corner, trying to find an answer. At last, as she found the answer, she-
"Thirty-two." Hans said, using a search engine instead of relying on memory.
Enigma sank back into the corner, hoping that the people in the middle of a conversation would forget about her.
"And we've only really had about five years of low crime rates." Tensei sighed. "You both probably don't remember much of it. We've sheltered you all too much as the older generation."
Hans put aside the cup noodles and rustled inside of his backpack for more sustenance that wouldn't assail the noses of everybody within this confined space, while Iida mechanically chewed on the noodles, almost like a paper shredder taking in another sheet for destruction.
"...You're probably going to want to ask me how it was, right?" Hans asked. "So, how bad was it?"
Tensei took a sip of his miso noodle broth dramatically, before setting it down like a shot glass. Looking at the smiling chibi face of the Ramen Hero: Noodlelegs!, before looking out of the window, he sighed.
"It was a different time, back then. The hero industry had only really just picked up." Tensei said. "But it was even worse when I had just made my debut as the hero next in line for the Ingenium name."
"There were probably villains everywhere, right?" Hans said. "I mean, we've all seen the crime rates graph in the news. All Might lowering crime rates isn't exactly news anymore."
"But did you know that Endeavor actually stops more crimes?" Ingenium said. "If we were judging on who did more, wouldn't Endeavor be the one to receive the number one title?"
"Obviously, there's something about being a role model and such." Hans said, shaking his head. "It's always about that when you're a hero."
"That's not what being a hero is all about." Ingenium said. "It's about hope."
"Hope?" Hans asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes. Irrational hope." Ingenium nodded. "Before you all were born, there was a time when villains outnumbered the heroes."
"The numbers today are just insane, though." Hans said. "There are thousands of licensed heroes, and maybe even tens of thousands, if you included sidekicks. There's no way that-"
"Back then, there were less than two thousand." Tensei said.
Hans fell silent.
"Before the hero industry really took hold, a lot of people became vigilantes to fight crime outside of the law." Tensei said. "It was because if you really had to go to school and become a hero, there would have been no time to make an immediate change. Villains were causing incredible amounts of damage. Gang violence was at an all-time high, like every other type of crime, and the people suffered. There was really a lack of hope back then."
"And All Might somehow changed all of this, right?" Hans said. "I mean, if you had the power to change the weather with just punches, then people would obviously have faith in you."
"Not… exactly." Tensei said. "All Might is a symbol for a reason. He's inspired the hero boom that we see today, and the strengthening of the industry. As more and more people stood up for what they thought was right and defended instead of acting like warlords and taking, society gradually gravitated away from being one ruled by might and the strength of one's quirk."
"...And the hero system still had a couple thousand heroes before All Might?" Hans said. "If what you're saying is true, wouldn't the situation have been kind of hopeless back then?"
"Believe it or not, despite the various people pulling the strings behind the industry, Heroism was created naturally." Tensei said. "For every three people granted with powerful quirks, two of those three people would probably be selfish about their powers and use it for their own benefits, and one out of three would join the fight for good. It started as a coordinated bunch of vigilantes operating outside of the police system, until the government saw how effective they were at actually reducing crime and gave them a legal profession, despite the uptick of property destruction."
"Again, I'm pretty sure that the government could just use snipers and take care of the problem." Hans said. "Bullets shot from a sniper are definitely faster than the speed of sound, meaning that you literally can't hear a bullet before it hits you. Anime has really misled too many people."
"But would you rather have actual heroes in costumes take care of the problem, or a ton of shady government agents with guns?" Tensei argued. "Clearly, people liked the heroes more. Regimes that rely on sniper squads and gunmen are usually seen as violent, overreaching dictatorships. What the early heroes did was give hope for a successful management of a quirked society, despite… not accomplishing that much."
"Hope, huh…" Hans said, scratching his chin. "But it was an irrational hope, right? After all, the heroes probably were defeated."
"Indeed." Tensei sighed. "Heroes, unlike villains, have morals and limits. Villains have all the advantages when fighting heroes, with hostages, them being able to use more violent implements, and not caring about collateral. However, the sacrifice of the early heroes passed down the torch of ideals to the present day."
"But this flame has mutated, has it not?" Hans argued.
"Did you ever think the hero system was about equality? About fairness?" Tensei said, raising an eyebrow. "It was simply the product of an era… to bring us out of that era. It was to spread the hope that someday, things would get better. The reason that we still use flip phones is that despite the years passing, nobody has focused on developing technology because they were so sure that some villain would just come in and destroy all their progress in developing new things."
"So, in the end, do you support continuing the system of heroism?" Hans asked, raising an eyebrow. "What exactly is your point here?"
"My point is that the peace we have now is fragile." Tensei said. "If All Might falls and hero society gets attacked by another supervillain too powerful for normal heroes, we can all get dragged back into the dark ages, and hero society is a symbol that we've risen above that chaotic era. Sure, it's not the best system, and it does exclude many people via culture. But currently, it's the best that we have, and having something is always better than having nothing."
"That's… an incredibly slippery slope." Hans said. "That could just be the justification for discrimination and continuing on in a broken system."
"I don't support those particular aspects of it." Tensei sighed. "But I've tried my best. I recruited Enigma here, along with several people with… sketchy… backgrounds as sidekicks. Just a couple years back I was involved with a couple of rather troublesome vigilantes. If we change the system, we run the risk of runaway chaos. If we change our culture… well, how are we going to do that? Society is too blinded in their views. In the end, we can't change anything. We're stuck. Society is in a pickle, and changing anything can mean untold chaos."
"...Nii-san, I didn't know that you held such complicated views." Iida said, his eyes wide open.
"Society is complicated. People even more so." Tensei sighed. "And while I can live with what I'm doing with a clear conscience, who knows what some people are up to in order to keep the peace on the surface? I don't know… and I need to know. But I don't want to know."
"So, I guess… In the end, all we can do is hope." Hans said, looking down at his mostly eaten instant noodles. A couple bits were left behind, swimming in the oily beef stew broth. Occasionally, they came into view, with patches of white floating up to the surface and begging somebody, anybody to reach their chopsticks down and scoop them up.
"And isn't that the most human thing we can do?"
Most people wouldn't be bothered.
Hans reached down with his chopsticks, picked up the bits of noodle, and sighed.
…
AN
Hope is a beautiful thing, isn't it?
Many describe it as an ephemeral butterfly, beautiful yet out of reach, or as the shining star, far yet bright, but I prefer to interpret it as a bright sun behind clouds. The gray and monotonous sky only receives variation from the sun shining from above, promising light, yet not granting it in full. Only occasionally do the golden rays show, and allow people below to imagine those bright and sunny days, both in the past and in the future.
Confusing metaphors aside, my golden days may be behind me.
My years frollicking in the K-12 system are over. Now, the days of adult responsibilities await. As clouds gradually fly over the horizon, I may look upwards at the cracks within, and imagine the days that once were. The time that I once had.
I have put 560k words on this website in these four years. And hope is a beautiful thing, but a limited thing.
Just like my time. And my freedom.
Wherever this leaves us, a discord server will always remain. Stop if you wish.
Discord link: discord . gg / 9t9MK3jHmV
-SpiritOfErebus