It continues. Hopefully y'all remembered the last chapter's context.

Also, TYSM for 2.3k favorites! Nearly a new record (13 away) for me :P

-SpiritOfErebus

…

It was almost paradoxical, how Hans was meant to survive in this situation. To speak to the maniac addled by Nursery Rhyme's reality marble, he would be constantly notifying the transforming lizard person of his location. If he notified the transforming lizard person of his location, he would be dead because the lizard person had a katana. And if he was dead, he couldn't speak to solve the situation.

So, as Stain's skin rippled and his existence was temporarily overwritten by the lizard person, Hans did the only sensible thing and ran.

After all, if the new person's wraith-like representation played by the same rules as Stain, then he would only try to kill Hans if Hans said things that disagreed with his ideologies. And like the average internet user, they only tried to find your location and kill you if you disagreed with them. Otherwise, they just smiled and waved in their little internet echo chamber, basking in their self-perceived moral superiority and isolating themselves from other groups.

Sadly, the buildings in the generic urban environment had no interiors, as they were just solid concrete blocks. That, and given the fact that the lizard man was a lizard, things were not going to be good for Hans if he went into the cramped alleyways, where the advantage of being able to move on vertical walls would shine the most.

Therefore, Hans ran forwards. Down the main street. As far away as possible.

The freezing air swirling around him within this seemingly endless urban landscape made his lab coat feel like a blessing, but his movements and the rustling of his clothes made it seem like nothing but a burden.

In the end, blood was roaring in his ears. The feeling of blood circulating through the veins on his head, causing a sense of dizziness, and a sharp pain in his lower chest made Hans gasp for breath desperately. Still, slowly, he kept staggering forwards, doggedly trying to put as much distance between himself and the lizard.

It wasn't going to be enough.

Turning, Hans saw the person he knew nothing about slowly approach him from the center plaza where his confrontation with Stain had ended, dual blades in hand.

Taking a deep breath and trying to ignore his own freezing sweat, Hans thought long and hard about a character that he needed to analyze… but had absolutely zero information about.

His skill Human Observation wasn't going to help here, since it wouldn't let him notice anything more than what his two human eyes could see, like the fact that he was dressed like EMIYA and followed Stain around like the hero killer was an idol, the fact that Hans had literally never talked to him before the reality marble was created meant that there was zero context to base his wraith form on.

What was this guy's deal?

Perhaps, then, the key remained in what Stain and Hans's cash grab recounting of EMIYA's stories presented. Clearly, they were all stories or thoughts about heroes doing hero things, with selflessness and saving people being portrayed as the one, be-all and end-all purpose for their life.

The stupidity in that kind of thinking was obviously apparent. But if that was the case, then the lizard person would probably have been melded in with Stain's representation in the reality marble.

Whatever this person's problem was, it was different.

So, what was it? The fact that this person actually took things that they read on the internet seriously, or the fact that he was delusional enough to think that he could actually make an impact?

Was his thoughts about anything related to heroism really the root cause of the problem here?

Looking at the person that Hans realized he had been calling a lizard person in his head the whole time, he realized the core issue.

This person's identity was his quirk to other people. Nobody probably saw past his lizardly skin and peered into the human heart underneath. And so, his whole life was naturally an identity crisis.

Hence, the cosplay. Hence, the over-attachment to internet theories and niche microcelebrities in certain circles. Although Stain wasn't a niche microcelebrity, his popularity on forums touting anti-society and anti-mainstream things was not to be ignored.

Really, it was a tragedy. A symptom of this strength-obsessed society, focusing on only the potential aspects of a character that could make you stronger or better than other people. Not that other societies were different. Money and good looks were clearly more vehicles to places that were higher up the social ladder as well in Hans's old, mundane, non-magical world, but here? Power was a route to all those things. After all, not all heroes were the most attractive person. They were famous, and therefore, rich, because they were able to arrive at those positions because of their powerful quirks that didn't look villainous.

But Hans wasn't here to give out kind platitudes. He didn't have time to address this issue, or any training as a therapist to untangle the mess that was probably the lizard person's mental state.

Instead, he needed to do as much emotional damage as possible to the lizard person, so that they get so angry that they remember their own identity.

"…Nothing that happens in this memory-altering reality marble gets remembered anyways." Hans sighed. Perhaps, he was the exception, due to the different nature of heroic spirit status, but other than that?

This was free reign. There were no violent, slightly traumatized teenagers to accidentally manipulate by being too cynical with.

"Seriously, who the fuck are you?" Hans shouted across the street, to the lizard man that was approaching at a walking pace.

"I really don't get your whole getup, you know? You act like a vigilante, you play dress up as a character from a really, really badly written novel, and you follow idiots like Stain around? What is your whole deal?"

The lizard man said nothing, but slowly increased their walking pace.

Okay, that had no effect. Other than a slightly creased brow, nothing happened.

Hans gritted his teeth. He wasn't drawing a reaction. That was weird. Usually, villains at least reacted when you questioned their purpose.

Perhaps one of these openings would work. It certainly kind of worked against those shounen protagonists.

"Do you really think you're special?" Hans shouted, "Do you really think you're accomplishing anything?"

Still, nothing. The lizard person only walked up the hill in the mockery of an urban landscape, his red clothes and green skin clearly outlined against the drab and gray backgrounds, like an abandoned christmas laurel sitting on the side of the street. Colorful and inviting, yet dead and withered.

But was Hans really losing his touch? Or was his perspective really skewed? So skewed that his insight wasn't accurate enough to prove to be damaging to somebody so clearly unstable?

"See the better half of the world, see the-"

No. Hans cut off the flashback of Yaoyorozu's words during the sports festival. He already knew. He already knew he was cynical and twisted, and that was a bad influence. However, those traits would forever stick with him, because after reading his tales, his readers all thought that he was. Therefore, his spirit origin had been changed to fit with their expectations.

Wait.

…Was that it? Expectations?

Was the person before him so used to being dismissed and berated that his words were only construed as typical?

Suddenly, Hans didn't know what to say.

Unlike Stain, the lizard person's stupidity was probably not entirely his own fault. Again, with the obvious lizard heteromorph quirk, he probably suffered quite a bit of discrimination or alienation from his peers, and also suffered a lack of opportunity solely because of factors that he couldn't control.

And so, feeling powerless and spat on society, he joined movements that both made him feel like a good person, opposed society's general standards, and made himself feel impactful.

Stain's movement and EMIYA's ideals represented that for him. But it was only a means to an end. Given enough time, he would find some other movement to latch onto and feel appreciated by, so insulting the movements wouldn't work either.

So, perhaps, the only way to elicit an emotional response… was to shatter that illusion that the lizard person cared about what he was doing.

Did he really care about anything that he was doing? Did the lizard person honestly think about what was right or wrong, or did he only think about what was right or wrong to the person he was trying to appease?

Ultimately, it circled back to this.

"You are a hypocrite." Hans said, choosing his third opener.

The hill that the lizard person had just ascended was completely devoid of the red and green. Only an urban sprawl lay before Hans's eyes, with each distant building in neat rows, akin to the headstones of a military graveyard. Endless, sobering, and monotonous.

Now, however, there was no time for extravagant descriptions. Hans immediately ran towards where the lizard person once stood, anticipating another attack from behind. Despite his precautions, however, nothing happened.

"Lies, lies!" a voice echoed throughout the streets. Looking up, Hans could see the shadow of the man standing atop a building, his clothes swaying with the flow of snowflakes in the ethereal winter weather.

"Everything that I do, everything that I've done, is to honor those footsteps I follow! To make them proud! Look as I don their masks and fighting styles! They-"

"But it doesn't really matter to you, does it?" Hans shouted at the rooftop figure. "None of this matters to you. As soon as you find another cause that's compelling to you, you'll drop this act in a heartbeat. Drop the heroic bullshit. Drop the mimicry and all the talk about your motivation. Think about why you're doing this."

"To get rid of villains… like you!"

With literally inhuman agility, the lizard person began to crawl down the wall faster than a normal person would descend from a ladder. Hans began to run, but even the crawling speed of the lizard person was faster than Hans's pathetic attempt as he eventually jumped from the wall, poised to slash Hans's face in two. Reflexively, Hans threw himself to the side, but immediately realized that was a terrible idea, as the lizard person had swords and thus had a wider range than he expected.

Another chunk of narrative significance surged to protect Hans as he was punted across the street like a hockey puck by the sword strike. The blue, shimmering shield went into overdrive, trying to prevent Hans from just dying because of the long tumble. At last, Hans hit a wall and fell still, his gaze unfocused. The frame of his glasses, or what remained of it, slowly slid off his nose and shattered into little shards of plastic.

On top of everything, Hans raised a hand, which slowly began to shimmer, with particles slowly radiating off his body.

It was official. Hans was basically running out of protection.

"Then who do you admire more? EMIYA or Stain?" Hans muttered, slowly trying to get up. Using the shattered concrete wall behind him for assistance, he blinked in surprise as he could see completely clearly. Perhaps his glasses were only there in this reality marble for decorative purposes.

The lizard person was silent, clearly processing the question. The wind was softer now, as well, but there was a sound in the distance.

What was that sound? It sounded like something hurtling through the air.

Normally, Hans would have just dismissed the sound. However, given the fact that this was a very controlled environment, literally no element that he could here could be dismissed as insignificant. That could be his salvation, or his doom. Perhaps Nursery Rhyme actually found him, or perhaps it was something else that he could use to his advantage.

However, whatever it was, it still needed time to arrive.

"Aha! You don't have an answer for that, do you? But you should! EMIYA is fake. Stain is real. EMIYA is a caricature, and Stain represents an actual problem in your society. But you still can't answer me, because they're different aspects in your journey towards self actualization that can't be weighted against each other. Imitating EMIYA is what gets you to think you're a good person, and Stain's cause is something that you follow in order to be against general society."

"...What's the third, then?"

"Well aren't you strangely talkative." Hans muttered under his breath. "Making yourself feel impactful. In other words, you seek validation! Like the rebellious insect, woven by Franz Kafka, seeking his own family acknowledgment only to be scorned by them! That's… that's actually pathetic." Hans chuckled, despite the situation.

"It's not your fault, but this society's fault, creating so many people without validation that they'll go to any lengths to achieve it. What do you think creates half the hero industry, despite its published risk factors?"

"Heroism." the lizard person said.

"No." Hans said.

The lizard person stepped forwards, and Hans quickly continued.

"It's actually really just desperate children. Like my classmates, who also follow your three-part program to self actualization. They think they're good people by becoming heroes, actually important because they fight villains and save lives, and also follow their version of an ideal society, which happens to be the opposite of your anti-society sentiments."

"So you agree with me, then. This society is evil. Stain is right. The causes I follow are correct."

"Well, perhaps yes." Hans nodded. "For now. Did you know that it also creates villains like you? This then feeds into each other, creating a wider gap between what are perceived as villains and as heroes, before you have a society like this! Brilliant work, isn't it? I'm sure that the people who concocted this are very happy with themselves. I realized that just now, actually, while rambling at you."

"...Why did you say for now?" the lizard person questioned, taking another step forwards and pointing a sword at Hans from a couple of steps away.

"Because I totally, definitely agree with you at the moment."

"Why at the moment?"

"You're much smarter than Stain in this reality marble." Hans mused. "Is it because, for some reason, you're actually more significant in the story? Anyways, it's until that mysterious noise reaches our location."

Then, something crashed onto the lizard person, freeing Hans from his grip.

So the entity was friendly after all. It was all in good time, too. As Nursery Rhyme's reality marble flickered before his very eyes, slowly growing darker and darker as his protections weakened further, Hans continued.

"That's why." Hans muttered. "I was waiting for this moment."

Taking a deep breath, he continued, as an armored figure continued to attempt and restrain the lizard person.

"But now, I can disagree. Because the only thing that you've done successfully in this life… is run away from responsibility. Running away from your problems and trapping yourself in this delusion of activity, of thinking that you actually care, is your core issue!"

"Nooo…." the lizard person growled, his swords slashing at the armored figure. Given the fact that the person was, well, armored, it didn't exactly have that big an impact.

"Although a lot of it is society's fault, you were so childish that even as a fully grown adult, you still just internalized statements said to you blindly instead of seriously reflecting on them, and so you ended up with these causes that are against society but still make you feel like a good person!"

The ring of metal on metal intensified, as the lizard person's swords slashed down like several blacksmiths wielding hammers to an anvil. Still, the armored figure was unyielding.

"You probably think that you're a hardened warrior with hardened conviction, but you act just like a weed blowing in the wind, bending your back to whichever gust blows the strongest! You can't even take any responsibility for yourself, and just mimic and follow other people, like your shitty cosplay and your delusional thoughts about Stain's ideologies! So, answer me this!"

The lizard person freed himself from the armored figure's grasp, but with the whine of a booster, the figure surged up to tackle the lizard person once more, landing at Hans's feet.

"Who. Are. You? What is your purpose? What are the original thoughts in your brain? And don't run away from this question, like you have with all of your other problems!"

The lizard person thrashed in the armored figure's iron grip, but at this point, Hans was running out of protection. Everything was just a green, red and gray blur at this point.

The only thing that could save him now was… his question actually making it through. Then, his description of the canon characters Stain and the unnamed lizard person would be marked as valid, giving him more narrative significance to continue existing in the reality marble.

But perhaps it was taking a little… too… long…

…

The scene was in absolute chaos.

An ethereal fog surrounded where a movie theater was supposed to be. However, the building had somehow disappeared, replaced with nothing but a column of fog that slowly reached out for the clouds.

Local heroes were on the scene as well, circling the wide boundary and

"Ingenium reported a people-absorbing villain… so perhaps the fog is the substance that absorbed them?" Manual, who was in the area when the call came, muttered, "Ingenium is nowhere to be found as well, and bystanders reported him… disappearing after the villain that looked like a little girl made the fog appear? But this mist doesn't seem to condense… and I can't control it at all."

"Manual, sir, do we know any of the names of the people that have disappeared into the fog?" a reporter said, stepping from out of the crowd to interview the normal hero.

"We are requesting ticket purchasing orders from the theater's website." Manual said, a smile coming up automatically. "However, all that we know at the moment is that Ingenium and his interns from UA have disappeared into the fog. Their status… still cannot be confirmed."

His smile slowly drooped.

"...Yeah, at least the fog is contained. Presumably by their sacrifice. According to witness testimony, something that the blue-haired intern did, who we know to be Hans Christian Andersen, stalled the fog, as, somehow, he was the only one to converse with the villain-."

…

"-which descriptions had not been limited to that just of a little girl. Some witnesses have reported the villain taking the forms of somebody in a trench coat, or somebody wearing a strange hat resembling a cheese grater. Perhaps the threat could be correlated to the other beams of light reported in other countries that quickly disappeared from those other theaters. Why this fog has appeared specifically in Japan is still a myster-"

Quickly swiping to another tab, Yaoyorozu typed into her group chat with Kirishima and Ojiro.

Have you all seen the news? What's going on? Hans apparently disappeared into the fog of a person-absorbing villain.

Her phone made a soft ding even as Manual continued to give more details about the situation, showing how the heroes had the fog contained, but that nothing could exactly be figured out about the fog itself.

He's going to be okay, right? Ojiro's message read.

What we need to do… is have faith. Kirishima's message said. I'm sure that whatever it is, Hans will be able to get through it!

"Is your friend in trouble?" her mentor David Shield said, holding a screwdriver and one of the headband devices Yaoyorozu had created thirty minutes ago.

"Yeah." Yaoyorozu sighed. "He always gets in things like this unintentionally. First, we all were in the USJ, and next, the courtroom things where people tried to assassinate the defendant in the League of Villains trial…"

"Sounds like a typical young hero's adventure, then." David Shield smirked.

"...I still worry about him, though."

"That's perfectly normal." David Shield said. "Heroes get into conflicts with villains all the time. This is just a taste of the industry."

"...Yeah," Yaoyorozu sighed. "I guess."

Placing down her phone, she once again focused on practicing with her quirk.

…

In an office building, within the many cubicles, many salarymen peeked over the walls quietly. Within one of the cubicles, two blue-haired people huddled over one phone, their faces pale with fear and worry.

Their work lay forgotten on the tables, and one of their rolling chairs had been thrown to its side when the person that had been sitting on it had dashed to the other frantically.

"Please, Hans…" his mother whispered. "Be safe…"

…

Stain's sword came down on nothing but mist, shattering the paved tiles of the movie theater that he was apparently standing on.

"Wha-" he exclaimed, looking around for the villain that he had just been about to attack, before something hit him.

Was he teleported?

Was this somewhere else?

Besides him, Spinner's attack hit the tiled floor as well, his crude replica of a sword bending slightly as it impacted the sharp stone.

"What?" Spinner also exclaimed, looking around the fog.

"There's activity!" somebody from outside the fog shouted. "It could be the person absorbing villain! Everybody, be on high alert!"

"The villain must have turned into this mist!" Stain hissed. "And heroes are all around us now!"

"What should we do?" Spinner muttered.

"We need to pretend to be civilians." Stain said. "If the villain was able to teleport and possibly trap us in some way, then that means that it must have caused quite an impact. Heroes are gathering here. Heroes that could solve this situation. If we present ourselves as threats, then we could mess up the situation more. Besides, we're clearly not effective against whatever this is."

"But if we were trapped… how did we get out?" Spinner muttered.

"I think… I kind of recall somebody yelling at me?" Stain muttered, clutching at his head. There were some vague memories of him chasing something, but it was too fuzzy to determine what the memories actually were.

"Okay. We need to ditch our weapons and our costumes, and act like civilians." unraveling his face masks and throwing away his knives, leaving only a tattered white shirt and his baggy, ragged pants, Stain sighed as he prepared a frightened expression on his face the best he could, despite his lack of nose.

"To survive, we're going to need to do… this." Stain sighed. "Like it or not, we're not going to be a match for the massing heroes. Besides, those guys aren't our enemies anymore. For now, we share a common enemy."

Then, he began to run out of the fog in a panicked fashion, screaming.

Sighing, Spinner followed suit, throwing off his cosplay and dashing into the light.

…

"Blue-haired child I think is my intern! Wake up!"

Groaning, Hans slowly opened his eyes.

It was still snowing. Everything was gray. And he was glowing blue. Stain and the lizard-person-that-Hans-still-did-not-know-the-name-of's descriptions were turning into little bits of narrative significance that stabilize his existence once obviously wasn't as much as what he got from three classmates of the main character, but it was enough to keep him going.

"What is going on here?" the armored figure asked. "I thought we were just fighting a villain, but-"

"Ingenium?" Hans questioned, looking at the familiar, beaten up helmet. "Is that you?"

"Is that me? Is that… is that my code name?" Ingenium asked, lying flat on the ground, and supporting himself up with only his arms.

"How are you not insane?"

"Another person wearing armor that was next to me when I appeared in this weird snowstorm wasn't responsive."

"Your brother." Hans reminded him, holding back a grimace as he tried to stand up.

"Yes. Yes. I think that was. I remember everything, but I can't remember anybody's names. Please! Tell me what's going on. Why can't I move my legs?"

"The question I should be asking is… why are you not insane?" Hans muttered, slowly getting up and helping Ingenium into a sitting position.

Why hadn't Ingenium changed at all, except for the broken leg?

What would have happened without Hans? Stain did operate in the general Tokyo area, and if Hans didn't talk to him, then Stain would still be purging heroes… and… oh.

"So, this is it for this character, huh. Ingenium was very specifically… a plot device that probably would have ended up paralyzed from the waist down if I didn't exist." Hans muttered.

In essence, Ingenium was a stagnant character. A character that probably wouldn't even appear that much or be significant in the later plotlines, but lead to the character development, or revenge arc, of Iida the deuteragonist.

But since literally nothing happened with Ingenium presumably after the internships if Hans didn't exist, Ingenium may have been so entrenched in his current paralyzed status that the reality marble wasn't able to affect him.

"Wow, for an author to just leave a character paralyzed and not do anything about it afterwards, despite their adjacency to the plot…" Hans muttered, "How many side characters does this world have?"

"...What are you talking about?"

"Just the nature of your existence." Hans sighed. "And your name? Is Tensei Iida.

You should remember everything now."

"Tenya's over there, by the way." Tensei said, pointing in a direction down the road as his figure slowly disintegrated into blue polygons. "...Will you make it out of here?"

"Yes." Hans lied. It didn't matter anyways. Ingenium wouldn't remember anything that happened in here.

Soon enough, Ingenium was gone. Only Hans remained on the cold, cold streets and the never ending urban landscape.

It was a sobering reminder. Hans would be stuck here. After all, part of his spirit origin had already been absorbed into Nursery Rhyme, with the little match girl a part of Nursery Rhyme's repertoire forever.

The least he could do was get everybody else out and power down Nursery Rhyme's reality marble by virtue of lack of mana.

After all, Hans himself required some degree of mana to remain in this world as a heroic spirit. If he managed to free his own body, his spirit would dissolve together with Nursery Rhyme if there was nobody else left trapped in the reality marble.

That was the plan. And now?

Hans just had a bunch of civilians and Iida to free.

"God, I want a vacation."

…He also really doubted that he would ever live to get that vacation he wanted.

…

AN

Spinner character analysis. Hopefully, I did it correctly. Part of my frustration arose from, yknow, Horikoshi not developing his minor characters, but my interpretation should be correct even in the canon.

Just replace the EMIYA cosplay with Spinner's later affiliation with the league of villains and blindly following the orders of Shigaraki just because they became friends. His whole journey of doing the villain gig really was just looking for affirmation. Later, he feels insecure too about becoming a symbol for heteromorphs, again a group that has an actual point for literally experiencing what is basically a mix of speciesism(?) and racism, which reflects Hans's statements about Spinner not wanting to take responsibility for anything, and runs from his problems.

But hey. That's just a theory. A dumb fanfic author's theory.

New link to discord: discord . gg / s2uFUydRVd

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-SpiritOfErebus