MHA: Temporal Infinox

[Desire]

In a small room, two individuals were sitting on chairs.

A desk separated them. One faced the window, the other the door.

The one by the window had a taller chair—the kind that said 'this is my office.'

Calling him a person was generous. He looked like a hybrid—part animal, part intellect.

A boy, seemingly in his early teens, sat across from him.

At first glance, the room was simple. A second glance revealed the lie—hidden high-tech equipment everywhere.

"It's my honour to meet one of the smartest creatures on this planet," The boy said, grinning.

He was practically vibrating in his seat.

His excitement was justified—he was in Nezu's presence.

The name alone commanded recognition among the masses.

"A pleasure to meet a bright young man like you. Your new solution for improving the efficiency of LLMs was... fascinating."

He liked that the boy had done this feat without having an intelligence-related quirk.

"Just lucky," The boy said modestly.

"I won't say that it's luck, after all, it's quite rare to find multi-talented people like you."

"What do you mean multi-talented?" The boy tilted his head.

"It's rare for a boy your age to shake up the tech world—rarer for the same boy to be part-time as a vigilante."

The boy's smile twitched.

Just for a second.

"Am I correct? Shigure, or should I say Mr Infinity?"

His eyes sharpened.

How? That was the question screaming behind his smile.

'Apart from Him, nobody should have known about my identity. Not even Aizawa had seen this face, so how?'

He'd been careful.

In fact, too careful.

Yet here sat Nezu—pulling his identity out of thin air.

His thoughts spiralled, but his body didn't flinch.

If anything, his eyes gleamed brighter.

Amused. Intrigued.

Almost... thrilled.

As if being cornered like this was part of some twisted game.

His mind started tracing back—digging through his past, searching for the crack in his perfect silence.

10 years ago.

"Are we really going to do this?"

"Hehe, getting cold feet now? That's quite rare, you know. I have known you for nearly one year, and weren't you the only one who repeatedly said at the start that you always wanted to try this? So don't back away now you sissy."

"Shut up you asshole! I never said I am going to back away."

Two people were present in a locked, dimly lit room.

They were both sitting on identical chairs and looking at a bottle present on the table.

It was a wine bottle.

"Did you bring glasses or something? Or are we going to take a swig from it directly?" The black-haired boy said.

"Obviously, I did. See, I even brought the transparent ones for this occasion." The blue-haired individual said with a grin while taking out two glasses.

"Wait, why did you do that? How much did it cost? Why do you always go with unnecessary expenses?" The ravenette had a frown on his face.

"Jeez, you and your stingy nature. Don't worry, I bought the wine with our collective funds, the glasses are on me." The blue-haired person poured the wine into both glasses.

The aroma of it filled the room, momentarily making the raven head to pause.

"Wait, I can't let yo-"

"Just shut it, James. You are ruining the mood. Let's try it before it gets warm." The man glared at his friend while shoving him with the glass.

They both had reached adulthood this year, and now, it is the last days of their second semester before the vacation starts.

It was the perfect time to do something right under the nose of the ever-strict warden.

"Tch, we are definitely having that talk later." The black-haired individual, James said, before taking the glass in his hand.

He looked at the reddish-purplish liquid for a few moments.

"Here goes nothing."

He took one sip, then another and then another.

"The taste is weird." James blinked.

He furrowed his eyebrow at the scene in front of him.

His friend, Tony, was drinking and talking to him. However, Tony's movements were quite quick.

'It's almost like I am watching a trashy anime at 5x or faster. Last time I did that for an anime made me question my moral decisions. I wonder how I would have fared if I had watched it on 1x.' James recalled his experience with that disturbing show.

Soon, the surroundings turned entirely black.

'Did I fall asleep? Or maybe this is a dream? A lucid dream, perhaps?' That thought brought a determined glint to James' face.

He willed the world into a different scene, but nothing happened.

He did that multiple times... only for nothing to happen.

'Tch, guess my luck is not that good for it to be true.' James was disappointed, especially after thinking of the list of fantasies he wanted to try in a lucid dream.

The black surroundings faded, and the scenery changed.

'A woman?' James saw a woman who was pretty close to him.

Everything was sped up, so he saw a few more children around and was put... in a cradle?

'Orphanage? Wait, what?' His hypothesis was spot on, confirming it some time later.

He watched the boy's life speed past in a blur—and felt every second of it.

A very sped-up movie, and despite that, he understood everything.

He didn't know how much time passed, but he figured out some things after seeing the heroes shown on Television and a particular blonde male with a giga-chad-like build posing in a scene.

'I am in My Hero Academia world... No, I mean this dream is based on this.' James reminded himself.

The line between his reality and this dream had blurred while looking at the boy's point of view for so long.

To James, this dream was quite weird.

He was having doubts about whether this was a dream or not.

'I learned Japanese unintentionally and even influenced some of the boys' decisions. If this is a dream, it's getting creepy with time. I think it would be a perfect time to wake up.'

Before he knew it, the boy was taken to a hospital to get his quirk checked, a few days before his 4th birthday.

It was July, and the hospital bustled with children for similar reasons.

"You must be Hatsune Shigure, right?"

"Huh?" The boy had a shocked expression.

"Hmm, is something wrong?" The doctor furrowed his brows.

"No, I was just entranced by your bald head for a second."

"Shigure!" The matron, who was escorting Shigure, said in a reapproaching tone.

"Hmm?" The boy turned his head to the woman and showed a confused expression.

He didn't know the weight of his actions.

"Please forgive him, doctor, he is just a kid." The matron ignored him and apologised to the doctor.

"Hahaha, it's completely fine. If kids don't act like kids, then who would?" The doctor said with a smile.

He was unbothered about the kid's unintentional insult.

'What the fuck happened? Wasn't this like a movie? Why did everything become slow? It's as if I am living here...' The boy's eyes widened as he realised his situation.

'I have fucking transmigrated... no, reborn would be a better word as I was able to experience everything and take decisions.' The boy sighed as he looked at the doctor, who started typing on his computer while asking questions to the matron.

"So, have you observed anything unusual happening to you recently?" The doctor asked Shigure, who was snapped from his musings.

"No doctor." The little boy shook his head.

"Doctor, could it be that he is..." The matron didn't complete her words, but her uneasy tone was enough to make it clear that she was pointing out the possibility of Shigeru being quirkless.

"Don't worry, Miss. He doesn't show any signs pointing toward it." He reassured her.

"Unless he is one in a million or a rarer case, I am sure he has it." The doctor joked as he shifted his attention to Shigeru.

Neither used the word "quirkless," avoiding needless worry.

"Shig-chan, your case is pretty special as it's rare for a kid to not discover their quirk till this age. But worry not, by the end of today, we will be able to identify your quirk." The doctor said with a smile.

To the doctor, the case was that Shigeru had awakened his quirk but hadn't identified it. This is quite common for kids his age, but they generally find their quirks long before Shigeru did.

"During the process, if you feel something unusual, immediately tell me."

Shigeru just nodded.

Firstly, he was given multiple logical puzzles and things alike to check if he had an intelligence-like quirk.

"Though you don't have an intelligence-related quirk, as I didn't see any energy fluctuation, there's a possibility that it's a secondary effect of your quirk... Or maybe you are just unusually smart. That is also a highly likely possibility." The doctor noted some things on a tablet before moving on to the next test.

Shigeru found himself lying in a pod with his eyes closed. His whole body was being scanned and probed with some things.

'This feels quite weird. Anyway, this world's technology is quite advanced compared to my previous world. Though it should have been quite obvious when U.A. entrance exams had robots in their test, but still, it's application in different things.'

Shigeru was amazed by the many complicated machines and their application with voice, or how AI was integrated into the workflow.

It was as if he were looking at the future of his previous world in terms of technology.

He had asked multiple questions about such things, and the bald doctor had even entertained him with many of his questions.

He must have looked like a country bumpkin... or worst, a kid... which he was now.

"Okay, I think I have an idea of what your quirk is; this last test should clarify it, just go into this room." The doctor said, his words shocking Shigeru.

'Wait, he has an idea? Why do I have no idea then?' Despite his confusion, Shigeru compiled and went into the room.

On entering the empty room, he first found nothing unusual.

He just stood alone in the room.

However, soon, he furrowed his eyebrows as he realised that he had heard a sound.

He focused on his hearing and realised that sound... was of his beating heart.

His heart was beating rapidly.

Before he knew it, he found sweat covering his entire body.

'Why am I so hot?'

He then suddenly felt something subtly changing in his body.

Shigeru found the world slowing down in his perspective...before it returned to normal.

"Doctor! I think I found my quirk." Shigeru said as he activated his quirk again.

The phenomenon repeated.

He knew exactly how to activate it.

It was like he had a new muscle or something.

The doctor asked him multiple questions, and a few more tests occurred before a comprehensive report was made.

Shigeru had asked about what exactly happened in the room.

The doctor had gone on a rant on how electromagnetic fields, temperature, pressure and some more things were changed to make him feel stress and other physiological responses to get a reaction out of his quirk.

"Well, here is the report on your quirk." The doctor's tone was calm and measured, yet a tinge of disappointment was present in his voice.

Shigeru looked at the hologram in front of him.

Name- Shigeru Hatsune

Quirk Name- Blink

Ability- A barely perceptible shift in personal perception. When activated, the user experiences a brief "lag" or "flicker" in time.

Visual Cue: A subtle, almost transient white glimmer around his blue eyes.

Scope: Limited to himself; can delay his reaction by a second or two.

Limitations: Range exclusive to him and has high energy costs, making it inefficient. Training could possibly lower the energy costs.

Estimated Tier: Tier 5

***

Join my Patreon to support me and get up to 20 advanced chapters:

- DESIRE96

(search it up)

Check out my other works.

Join my Discord to talk to our community. The link is in the synopsis.

 

[Hyperionthetitan]

Ability- A barely perceptible shift in personal perception. When activated, the user experiences a brief "lag" or "flicker" in time.

Click to shrink...

Weaponized bad wifi . Truly the forbidden art.

 

[Desire]

'Weak'


That was the first thought that came to Shigure's mind when he looked at the report.


"Tier?" He muttered.


His brows scrunched up—oddly cute for a 4-year-old trying to look serious.


"Quirks are classified into 5 tiers based on their capabilities when they are mastered," the doctor clarified.


It didn't take a genius to see whether tier 5 or tier 1 was stronger by seeing Shigure's quirk.


"It's quite common to have a tier 5 quirk, Shigure. There's always a chance of awakening your quirk to make it strong," The matron said, patting the little boy's head.


"Indeed, nearly half of the quirked population has tier 5 quirk. Also, just having a high-tier quirk doesn't make you stronger. Mastery is a crucial factor, and higher quirks need higher mastery," The doctor said, supporting the matron's words.


He'd expected something rare, but the report snuffed out that hope. Still, blaming a kid for a weak quirk felt wrong.


'So much for swatting All Might and All For One like flies. Guess I'll just be a background mob character and hope Izuku doesn't screw it up.' Shigure frowned at the thought.


'I could go for One For All, but that itself is a difficult choice. First of all, I need to somehow get approval from Toshinori himself, which does sound easy when I have read a lot of fanfics or how it was portrayed in anime.

There won't be bad writing or plot holes here. This isn't fiction anymore—my presence won't fix anything by default. Unless I'm ready to go full martyr-mode, I should give up on conning Yagi into handing over OFA.

Secondly, let's say, somehow, I could even get OFA, the next point is whether my body would handle it. From what was told in the manga, if the third-year pervert had inherited it, he wouldn't have lived for long. I don't want to risk the possibility of exchanging my life span for a stupid quirk.


And thirdly, I don't need ghosts peeping in my head, thanks. Hard pass.' Shigure sighed at the reality in front of him.


"SHIGURE!"

"Huh?" Shigure tilted his head towards the matron.


"You weren't responding."

"Oh, sorry about that. I was just thinking a bit."

The matron stared at him for a few more seconds before talking with the doctor.


'Whatever. I don't need a good quirk to survive in this world. I have the tech skills I learned from my previous world, and despite this world being more technologically advanced, I could adapt.' Shigure told himself as he talked a bit more with the doctor before giving him a farewell.


'Plus, wasn't technology more significant in the latter story? I bet quirk would become irrelevant later on.' Shigure nodded to himself.


'But, isn't that just external power?' Suddenly, a counterargument formed inside his mind.


'Idiot. All it takes is that little girl's blood and his father's quirk to take away your quirk. See? That's the power of science. I might even find a way to artificially awaken my quirk with it.' Remembering Eri's situation soured his mood.


He wouldn't call himself a good person—too selfish for that—but even he couldn't ignore her situation and still look himself in the mirror.


'Need to first focus on myself. Then only I would be able to help others. Plus, she probably isn't born yet.'


He, along with the matron, returned to the orphanage.


Shigure did some chores to free his mind.


'I really have reincarnated, huh. A new world, new life, new body and new... wait, new body?' Shigure's grip on the broom loosened.


'Wait, I have a new body! A kid's body! Which means... my addiction is a thing of the past!'


Shigure's eyes widened to the size of saucers.


He might be exaggerating a bit as he only did that around 3-4 times a week, but it was still something that he couldn't stop.


"Ahahahahaha", Shigure laughed loudly.


It was one of the things that he always wanted to stop, but as if the addiction was engraved in his body, he wasn't able to escape.


The broom fell from his hand... on his leg.


"AAAAAAAHhhhhhhhh" Shigure cried out as he clutched his left foot while lying on the floor.


'It fucking HURTS, it fucking hurts.'


That's when he learned—new body, new pain tolerance. And a kid's body sucked at handling pain.


"Shigure-kun! I told you not to play around with that broom. It's the third time this week you've had the broom fall on your foot!" One of the caretakers crouched near him and placed her hands near the wound.


"I am sorr—y, I, was a... bit distr—acted"


A soft blue glow wrapped around the wound before Shigure felt something warm flow through that area, the pain subsided, and the skin regained colour.


Despite seeing this multiple times, Shigure was entranced by the display.


"Nee-chan, what is the tier of your quirk?"


"Hmm? Where did that come from?"


"Curious. Recently came to know about the tiers."


"Tier 5."


"Oh, cool."


"Anyway, go back to your room, I will complete the things here."


Before Shigure could retort, she shot him an icy glare.


He could only swallow his words and leave the area.


'It seems tier 5 quirks are not entirely useless either. I guess that's where the mastery comes from. Moreover, there was a saying I heard somewhere...


"A quirk is not strong or weak. It's the users who shape them to what they become."

Well, this is kind of arguable, but to some extent it is true.


I might not be able to become the strongest with this quirk, but in the end, I don't care.'


Shigure's lips curved into a smile.


'Just having powers is enough for me.' Shigure bounced on his feet as he prepared to play—no, experiment with his quirk.


To him who didn't have any superpowers before, just getting one is good enough for now.


He would rather cherish the things he had rather than curse about the things he didn't have.


---


Time passed, and before Shigure knew it, 4 years had passed.


He was now 8, lying on a bed in a one-room apartment.


Yesterday, he had said farewell to the orphanage.


Now, one may think, how could an orphan without money afford a place to live, especially without supervision?


To answer that, we need to go back in time, specifically a few weeks ago.


---


"Shigure-kun, you are smart, right?"


"Nee-chan, to stay humble, I would say no."


"Jeez, check this out." A lady in an apron handed the tablet to Shigure, who looked at it curiously.


'Did she fall for my charms? Will she give me the tablet to keep it safe?'


Shigure got rid of his ridiculous thoughts just as he focused on the screen.


'Blink.'


The world slowed. Then snapped back. The whole thing happened again and again.


Reflex. His quirk pulsed like a second heartbeat now—steady, automatic.


At first, it was just excitement. Then habit. Then instinct.


Now, his quirk activates on instinct every few seconds, even in his sleep.


He had not only increased the duration of how much time he could keep his quirk active, but lately, he thinks that he might be on the cusp of a breakthrough.


Of course, he'd been thinking that for months now.


After half a minute, he looked at the lady in shock.


"Is this for real?"


"Real."


"Will I still be eligible despite not having an intelligence-related quirk?"


"Yes."


Shigure's eyes shone as he thought about leaving the orphanage.


'If I spend more time here, I will go insane. Acting as a kid is not good for my mental health.'


Unknowingly, a smile appeared on his face.


However, to the lady, it looked quite a creepy smile, especially with how Shigure's entire face looked tired along with his quite long hair, which most of the time hid his eyes.


But she kept quiet—no point in breaking the kid's heart.


'I have heard that saying such things could make kids highly likely to take the villain route.'


"Did you again not get proper sleep last night?"


"Uhh, yeah. That reminds me, I am hungry."


"Already? Didn't you just have lunch an hour ago? You eat as much as 10 kids combined." She stared at him, then at his stomach as if it had betrayed her.


"I think I just have a high metabolism." Shigure combed his hands through his hair.


'If only she knew that I activate my quirk every few seconds.'


Time passed, and the day of the tests came.


He passed those tests, got most of the privileges of an adult, received the room and some money, and now he is here.


'It's quite ridiculous that geniuses like those guys exist. These people have achieved twice what I could have achieved at half my age.' Shigure was humbled deeply when he saw some people present in the exam centres.


His thoughts then went back to the head matron's disappointed gaze when he was leaving.


That look…


It reminded him of another.


Another goodbye.


Another failure.


A face that stopped believing in him.


'10 Marks'


'Rank XXXXX'


'It is what it is. I would support your decision on whatever future path you choose.'


He quickly stopped his line of thought, not wanting to delve into his memories.


He walked towards the mirror and saw eyebags under his eyes.


"Damn, the continuous quirk usage has changed me," He said while looking at his half-dead zombie like face.


"Whatever, I will just take a walk and get some groceries." Shigure left his room, took the elevator down, and walked towards the nearest convenience store.


'I need to plan my goals in more detail for the next month before tonight.' Shigure immediately scheduled the task in his calendar.


"Is that a malnourished kid? Was he put through child labour?"


"Are you sure it is not an old man who looks like a kid?"


"Mama! I am scarred."


Shigure's lips twitched at the number of looks he was getting.


He pinched his nose, trying to come up with a fix.


'It's about time I cut my hair. I don't need to hide that I activate my quirk every few seconds from others, as I would stay indoors most of the time. For outside, I would buy some contacts.'


Shigure searched for the nearest shop where he could buy contacts and headed there.


"This should be it." Shigure looked at the shop and pushed the door open.


"How may I help you, sir?"


"Contacts. I want contacts." 'Fuck, now he probably thinks I have some disability or something...' Shigure bit his lips to stop his face from changing into an embarrassed one.


He quickly bought the contacts and left as quickly as he came.


'Next, I need t—' The world slowed down around Shigure, who looked at the scene near him.


He was standing near a footpath, a man with headphones, crossing the road, unaware that the traffic signal had turned red long ago.


Moreover, a truck was heading towards the man at a blinding speed.


'He's about to get isekai'd, isn't he?'


In Shigure's head, a future started taking shape: born into a rich clan, looked down on for weak talent, gets cheated, face-slaps everyone, challenges a god, the same one who gave him his golden finger—maybe even marries her.


Then what? Realizes cheats are too common? Potentially could make an average mob rise to threaten him? Starts hunting other isekai'd guys across timelines?


'Nope. Not letting that happen.' Shigure decided in a split second.


"Huh?"


Shigure felt his quirk activating involuntarily. However, something different happened.


A shimmer pulsed from him like a heartbeat—then the air flexed, and a translucent sphere exploded outward like a ripple in glass.


'What the hell?' He could feel it—not just the light, but the pull, like time itself was bending.


And the guy… moved.


'So this is what awakening feels like...


Took you long enough.'


***


Join my Patreon to support me and get up to 20 advanced chapters:


- DESIRE96


(search it up)


Check out my other works.


Join my Discord to talk to our community. The link is in the synopsis.

 

[Desire]

Shigure knew exactly what happened with his quirk.


He looked around and internally sighed when he saw the nearest camera far away.


With so many people walking, now surrounding the stopped truck, Shigure knew he wouldn't be implicated directly.


'Just in case, I will stick around a bit more.' Shigure looked at the scene of a fight between the truck driver and the man who almost got isekaid.


Shigure suddenly found his palm twitching. He put that hand in the pocket and took out— chocolate.


He watched the unfolding drama while munching on his bar.


'Red Velvet is the best.'


Shigure only left the scene when he realised he had run out of chocolate.


'Supermarket or barber?' Shigure made a split-second decision for his next destination and went for the former.


"Can't be without any chocolates, hehe~" A perverted smile appeared on Shigure's face, disappearing as soon as it appeared.


He turned his head left and right, checking if anybody witnessed him like this.


His eyes met a dog's eyes.


STARE


A boy and a dog stared at each other.


The dog made a weird expression and was the first to leave the area.


"Huh?"


---


"You sure about this, kid?" the cashier asked, eyeing the pile of sweets like it might bite her.


She was looking at the items he brought for the checkout.


"Yes, I was born sure." The boy sagely nodded.


A frown appeared on the lady's face.


She looked at the screen again to see if she was seeing things.


—————————————————————————————————————————————————————


Item Quantity Price


Milk Chocolate[10000 Cal] 5 2500 Yen


Dark Chocolate [5000 Cal] 1 300 Yen


Red Velvet Cho...[100000 Cal] 10 50,000 Yen


...


Grand Total 119,368 Yen


—————————————————————————————————————————————————————


'He doesn't even look like a rich kid, and what's with most of the items being chocolate? Is his quirk related to chocolates?'


"Kid, do you have your parents' permission?" Just as the words left the cashier's mouth, she immediately regretted them.


His shoulders dropped, eyes hidden behind his bangs—every line of his body spelling quiet defeat.


"I—I lost my par—parents." The boy's whole body trembled slightly.


"I am so—"


"They took it." Shigure cut off the lady.


"What?"


"They took away all the inheritance by giving my age as an excuse. They took my guardianship, and treated me poorly, said that they would give me a poor education and whatnot, and somehow take all the inheritance before I mature.


I told the authorities, but they bribed them." The boy clenched his teeth, vein popping on his fist, as he tightly held the bag.


"Who?" The cashier asked with a frown.


Who could treat a kid who didn't even look 10 like this? She was already unsatisfied with the current government, and her beliefs were strengthened as she looked at the boy.


"My relatives. To escape their control, I gave the independence exam, and by some luck, I passed and am currently living on a stipend. My quirk takes a lot of energy, so I need a lot of calories, the same thing my relatives took advantage of to find a loophole in the laws and not feed me properly."


The lady felt anger at his situation. It was not uncommon for greedy relatives to be like vultures.


She won't be surprised if those people were the ones who killed their parents in the first place. The boy might have been from a very rich family, seeing how the police were even bribed.


'I won't be surprised if this boy turns out to be a villain to fend for himself in the future when he can't cover his costs.'


"Heroes just know how to pose for cameras." He clenched his teeth. "They... they told me that they can't help me, being too much trouble for them to get in conflict with an influential figure.


Moreover, they said that such deeds have not much chance of media coverage, so they don't care."


A visibly disgusted expression appeared on the boy, mirroring that one of the lady.


"Heroes are all talk. Back in my time, it wasn't like this. If only people had one-tenth of All Might's values... our society is heading towards its doom." She shook her head.


"With what happened to me, I won't be surprised if some villain more powerful than All Might comes and puts an end to all this. Anyway, it was nice talking to you." Shigure took out his phone and scanned the QR code.


"Wait!" He tilted his head at the lady.


"Though I don't know how much you have suffered or will suffer, as a token of kindness to prove that kind people do exist, I will give you a 50 per cent off." The cashier said before typing in her computer.


She showed him the bill of 60,000 Yen.


"I—" Before Shigure could retort, the lady said, "The world might have been cruel to you until now, but don't lose hope. Good things do happen. Just like how it happened now. Life has its ups and downs. Whenever you feel down, remember that such ups might be very close."


Shigure's mouth closed, then opened before finally closing.


His body trembled again, as if barely holding back his tears.


"T—Thank You. I remember that for the rest of my life." Shigure bowed his head.


"It's fine." 'I hope he doesn't become a villain.'


Shigure paid the new bill and left the shop before thanking her again.


The cashier hummed, feeling good that she helped a kid and potentially stopped him from becoming a Villain.


'Tch. I was aiming for free. Guess 120k was pushing it... Still, worth it to observe her for a decent amount of time before approaching her. She was so gullible.' Shigure smirked as he headed towards the barber next.


'I wouldn't have been able to pull this off without my quirk. It gives me a lot of time to steady my emotions. I couldn't even count the many instances where I almost laughed if not for my quirk. Also, without it, I wouldn't have noticed that she disdains the current society. That was the main point that sealed the deal.'


Shigure hummed, feeling good about his bargaining skills.


---


"Shall we check this baby out?"


Shigure stood in his room, in front of a mirror.


He now had shorter hair, which didn't hide his eyes.


'Blink.'


He activated his quirk, an invisible bubble— only visible to Shigure- that started expanding from him as the centre.


"KYAAHH—what the fu—oh. It's me."


Shigure blinked at his reflection, eyes morphing into a clean white arrowhead.


It was the same as the forward button on a remote or a video player.


Realising that it was he only, Shigure let out a sigh.


'For a second, thought that some villain had come through my mirror or something. It was so surreal.'


Shigure brought his face close to the mirror, taking a closer look.


'Not gonna lie, looked creepy first, but it seems cool. If my eye is changing, will I get some crazy ocular powers? Or do I need to make some friends and kill them to get those?'


Shigure chuckled at his joke.


He backed off from the mirror, however, something caught his eye.


Shigure's eyes widened as he held a thick strand of white hair.


'Poliosis?'


He felt his heart beat rise at this.


'Calm down. It's just a strand. Probably due to my quirk. It would disappear when I deactivate my quirk.' Shigure deactivated his quirk and watched in shock as the white strand turned back to black.


He turned on his quirk again and saw the white hair returning.


He turned off again and saw the black.


He turned on and saw white.


Off. Black.


On. White.


Off—


"...Wait. What the hell am I doing?" Shigure broke himself out of the trance-like state.


He looked around the room, checking if anybody saw him like that.


"Anyway, this is just cosmetic. Plus, the white doesn't seem like drained off melanin, more like silvery-white or something. Looks cool."


He finally turned his attention to the effect of his awakened quirk.


He picked up a pen and tossed it towards his bed.


He saw the pen move normally until it exited the bubble.


After that, it slowed down considerably.


"Exactly what I thought," he muttered, watching the second hand tick like molasses.


One would have mistaken it for a broken clock.


Shigure watched it for a few seconds before seeing the visible change in its position.


'My quirk speeds up everything in this bubble compared to the outside world.... A time-related quirk.' Shigure inhaled sharply at the realisation.


This awakening changed everything he had planned to do in his entire life.


'I figured I'd become a hero someday. Maybe before thirty. If I still cared by then. However, tier 4 or not, this quirk is broken. With this... don't I have a fucking time chamber for myself?' A grin appeared on Shigure's face, realising that his quirk is a cheat.


He laughed. Loud and long and manic.


"With this..." He suddenly felt a wave of weakness creep into his entire body.


His eyes turned back to blue.


He slowly dragged himself towards the bag on his bed and took out a chocolate, devouring it quickly.


"My calorie needs just went ultra instinct... Damn it. I would be done with all this before tomorrow."


***


Join my Patreon to support me and get up to 20 advanced chapters:


- DESIRE96


(search it up)


Check out my other works.


Join my Discord to talk to our community. The link is in the synopsis.

 

[Desire]

4 Years Later.


A boy sat on a chair with a blank expression. His bright blue eyes contrasted with his tired look.


His hair was black with multiple big strands of silvery-white hair present, comprising half of his hair.


Crinkle


The sound of a wrapper being peeled off could be heard.


Crunch


He bit on the chocolate with the same look.


Crunch. Crunch. Then—Ack!


He almost swallowed the wrapper.


Ptoo


He spat out the wrapper, which joined the other wrappers lying on the floor.


DING


The bell echoed through the apartment. Shigure glanced at the door before looking back at the floor.


DING


DING


DING DING


DING DING


"Hmm?" Shigure suddenly tilted his head.


DING DING DING


'Why is that wrapper wet?' He furrowed his brows.


DING DING DING


DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING


The doorbell continuously rang before stopping completely.


BEEP BEEP BEEP


His phone buzzed.


He looked blankly at the call from an unknown number.


He stared for moments… that stretched into minutes—


His grip on the phone tightened. He got up from the seat and walked towards the door.


He opened the door to a deliveryman glaring like he wanted to punch someone.


"Hatsune-san?"


"Yes, that would be me. You took a lot of time to get here, no?" Shigure frowned.


Veins started popping on the man's forehead, however, he didn't move.


"Sir, you changed your locations 9 times in the last 7 hours... Did you lose your mind?"


"It's not my fault, as your company uses such an outdated map service. Did you know that due to your repeated calls in the last 7 hours, I didn't get any proper sleep." Shigure pointed his fingers at his eyebags.


At 12, he looked more worn-out than an old man working in a black company.


The delivery guy also found himself speechless, observing Shigure.


"I am very sorry, sir. The as— boss is quite orthodox in such matters. I am tired of trying to explain to him stuff." The delivery guy sighed.


"Anyway, thank you for the items. Here's the code." Shigure said in a hurried tone, as if wanting to complete the ordeal.


Shigure gave the code. The guy whispered a prayer and left.


He ignored it and shut the door.


'I was expecting him to attack me, yet this guy won't even fight with his boss. He wasted all the time I invested in him.' Shigure's jaws clenched along with his grip on the box.


'Breathe' He took a deep breath, followed by multiple deep breaths.


He opened his phone to check his bank balance.


96,627,420 Yen.


'Three months, give or take.' His mood dropped, remembering his meal costs.


Suddenly, his half-white, half-black hair turned completely white. His eyes now sported a single forward arrowhead.


'1 month... 1 month... I need to wait 1 month... how much would that be in my dilated space?... let's move now only.' Impatience won


---


Location- Saitama


The door of the train opened, and Shigure exited.


He looked around before going to the streets.


"Damn, this is completely unexpected," Shigure said while looking at a statue of a bald man, in a costume.


People could be seen taking photos with that statue.


"Guess otaku culture's alive after all." He started walking towards the location by looking at his phone.


He was wearing a hoodie and tracks, all loose. His body shape was hidden. An image recognition algorithm wouldn't recognise him if he covered his head fully instead of just a face mask.


He entered an alley, dropping his bag.


He put on a mask— no a visor, looking futuristic.


'Spent a fortune on this hunk of metal. It better pay off.'


<LOADING.... Welcome Smasher. What are you going to smash today?>


Shigure heard a female robotic tone in his ears.


"How childish." He muttered, a grin creeping on his face.


"Ki, we are going to smash some balls today."


<... UNDERSTOOD. Initiating the Protocol S. Calibrating location in the Map...Success. Requesting access from the Public cameras in the area...Success. Finding targets for the User...>


Ki is the most successful agent created by Shigure to date. Her performance is on par with the Intelligent Systems found on the market. It was an impressive feat because Shigure was running her locally, on his servers, which are incomparable to what her market competitors run on.


It was one of the things he had done in the last 4 years to cure his boredom.


Unfortunately, Ki had not reached a level such that she could mimic humans, let alone impulsive humans. Otherwise, Shigure might spend all his time with her to entertain himself.


It was one thing to mess with humans, and a different thing to mess with a machine trained to act calmly.


<Success. The first target was found. Name: Unable to find in the online criminal registry. Age- Somewhere between 18 and 39. Quirk- A transformation type, applicable to any part of his body. Currently, mugging a person with a knife in hand.>


A transparent mini-map appeared on the top left part of his vision. He started moving towards the pinned location.


"Ki, how am I supposed to smash his balls if he can turn it in spring?"


<Thinking...Looking through the web...Here is the list of multiple plausible solutions you could try, which have a higher chance of Sterilization.>


A small bullet list appeared in the middle of the right side of his vision.


1. Break the spring.


Breaking the spring itself has a high chance of causing damage to the original organ.


2. Tire your enemy.


Every quirk requires energy. Tiring him out until he can't sustain his transformation is a plausible choice.


3. Attack at multiple points.


This could lead to overwhelming them, giving you an opening to exploit.


He blinked.


"That's... new. I wasn't expecting you to answer... at least not like this. Can you send me the citations that you used to generate this response... It seems I am missing some of the juicy online discussions like this." Shigure looked at the top websites Ki had used for her research.


Redd*t.


<Understood. Sending the citations to your email.>


Shigure stopped walking as the target came in sight.


The man counted stolen bills. The victim was long gone.


"Guess, heroes are indeed late after all."


The bulgar turned sharply towards Shigure, getting into a guarded stance.


"Who the hell are you?"


"Ki, are you done finding the nearest location where cameras aren't present?"


<Done! Please check the map.>


"Answer me! Actually, I don't care as long as you don't disturb me."


"He can't hear me, can he?" Shigure scanned his opponent.


<Communication mode is off currently. Do you want me to turn it on?>


"Nope." Shigure put one of his hands in his bag and took out something.


It was a stack of papers.


Money specifically.


Shigure flailed the money stack around.


"Do you think you could catch my attention if you flail money around?" The burglar said with a deadpan.


Shigure stopped flailing the money and looked the man in the eye.


Eye met visor.


Step.


In the next instant, Shigure bolted towards his left.


"WAIT! We can talk!" The villain shouted, his feet converting into springs.


WHOOSH


Air parted away as the villain moved at speeds rivalling that of a speeding car.


His target— the money stack.


Shigure, as if he could see behind him, threw the bill in the side alley.


"Hmph." The man snorted. He kicked the wall on his right, bolting into the alley and grabbed the money bill before it touched the ground.


"YOU! This is fake!" The man shouted, throwing away the stack of bills.


"Dumbass. What did you expect?" A Mechanical voice could be heard coming from the visor.


The man's entire body shook with rage before going completely still.


"I see what's happening here. A kid who is still in his diapers is playing hero. I will give you points for the visor for hiding your identity... but." The man suddenly disappeared and appeared inches away from Shigure.


"It is useless if you can't protect the visor." The man swiped his hand.


Tried to.


'Huh?'


He found the boy sidestepping.


He wasn't surprised at the boy sidestepping, but at the sheer speed at which he sidestepped.


That didn't seem to align with his understanding of physics.


SMACK


Suddenly, he found himself slapped right across his cheeks.


RING.


'Huh?' He blinked, his ears ringing.


SMACK


Another slap on his other cheek.


The pain finally registered for him.


'Fast.'


That was the only coherent thought he made before getting smacked again.


SMACK


SMACK


SMACK


The slaps came so fast they blurred—like gunfire made of flesh. The thief stumbled back, vision tilting.


"Hehehehe."


A mechanical giggle sputtered out of the boy—cut off mid-note, like a toy running out of batteries.


The man tried to spring away, literally—his legs flexing and bouncing. But the boy matched him, skipping alongside like a ghost on an energy drink, slapping him every few steps. Like he was playing whack-a-mole and just found the premium version.


Then he noticed the gloves.


Red.


Wet.


His blood.


"Eww." The boy stopped, holding his hands out like a kid who touched a worm. "Now look what you made me do. My gloves are all sticky."


He tilted his head.


"...I almost forgot—I do have a weapon."


He reached into his bag.


The thief hit the floor so fast he left a skin trail.


"W-wait—look, we can talk. You're young! You've got a whole life ahead! College! Anime girls!"


The boy paused mid-reach.
"...Anime girls?"


A grin formed behind his visor.


"Nah. You're funnier. Way funnier than that deliveryman"


Shigure took out rods from his bag.


Just small, linked rods. That's all the man saw.


"Huh?"


Then the pieces snapped into a single metal staff.


It was a foldable metal stick.


"What are y— AAAAAAAAAAAAAH....." The staff hit his groin. He dropped, groaning


"CM"


<Turning Communication Mode Off.>


"All that advice, and none of it mattered."


<Only 3 Recommendations were given, taking care of edge-cases. It wasn't expected for the target to be this weak.>


Shigure rolled his eyes, muttered 'useless,' and looked back at the man.


Suddenly, Shigure hit the man again at the same spot.


"Ahhhhhhhh..."


He watched the man writhe.


Crack.


Another hit.


"Ughhhhh...."


This time, he noticed himself.


His breath hitched. Goosebumps crawled over his skin.


'"...Fuck."


***


A/n- There's an author note at the end of chapter 8, which will address these tendencies of Shigure. It would be a minor element in the storytelling, but an important one to who Shigure is. So, do read that before making any conclusions about this story.


***


Join my Patreon to support me and get up to 10 advanced chapters:


- DESIRE96


(search it up)


Check out my other works.


Join my Discord to talk to our community. The link is in the synopsis.

 

[Desire]

Date- 9 August 2XXX


KLANG


KLANG


KLANG


Two figures clashed in a narrow alley, shadows jerking under dim streetlight.


A closer look revealed a boy hammering a man with a metal rod. The man took the blows, his movements crawling—like a video in slow motion.


"Damn, what are these scales made of?" the mechanical voice muttered.


"That should be my line. You're the one moving like lightning—or am I just stuck in slow-mo?"


Shigure stepped back, rod still in hand, putting a few meters between them.


"Why'd you kill him?" Shigure tilted his head, curiosity flickering behind his visor.


The masked, bulky man could now hear his voice on normal speed.


"Why? 'Cause he hooked up with a girl I was chasing."


"So? It's just segs. From how you framed it, it was consensual. Doesn't seem like a reason to kill someone."


"Hmph, you are just a kid. You won't understand. He took what was mine, so I also gave him what he deserved."


'Is he deluded... or just trying to sell his story?'


"Hmm... makes sense. Name?" Shigure nodded, as if buying the lie.


The man, initially caught off-guard, said after a few seconds, "Ryu... Ryu Watanashi. Anyway, kid, leave already before you get hurt. I don't want to beat up kids. I will ignore that you attacked me first."


Shigure stared silently, visor unreadable.


The man stared back at him.


<Successfully found his file. Dictating the content of the files...>


He hadn't even asked, but Ki had already pulled up the file.


During such situations, no text boxes or even the map popped up in Shigure's vision for obvious reasons.


"Why did you kill him?" Shigure asked after a beat.


The man furrowed his brows behind his mask.


"Didn't I already—"


"I meant your boss."


"..." The man was left speechless by Shigure's words, not expecting him to know his past.


"Hahaaha, technology has come so far in this decade. It seems that your helmet is useful after all."


Shigure's silence said enough.


"Why are you interested in me? You could already guess why I did it by reading my files?"


"Curious about your perspective." 'It's my first time seeing such a unique case.'


"...Haven't you heard about the phrase 'Curiosity killed the cat.'?" The man said in a cold tone.


"Yeah. Have you heard the phrase 'The cat has 9 lives.'" Shigure retorted.


"Hahaha. Quite daring, I like it. Well, if you are interested in my point of view, then let me tell you about my journey. It's going to be quite lo—"


"Please keep it within 20 words. I don't have much time to waste on you."


The man blinked.


"Tch. These days, youngsters have no respect for the elders. Anyway, the reason I killed him is coz he fired me from my only paying job. It was unfair." The man's fist hit the nearby wall, creating a small crater.


THUMP


'How weird. I was expecting him to attack me. I guess his emotional regulation during such moments is good as he knows he can't touch me.'


"Didn't you sleep with his wife?"


"So? She was the one who initiated it, and it's not my fault that her husband cannot satisfy her desires."


'Hmm, let's try that.'


"It was not a one-time thing from what I could see. You slept with her for a few months. Hmm, how about this, what would you have done if you were the boss and found your wife sleeping with another man coz you can't satisfy her." Shigure took a few steps towards the man.


"Kill both of them." The man replied almost instantly.


"Ain't that hypocritical?" Shigure was now standing 5 steps in front of the man.


"It is. But in this world, the ones with power are the only right ones." The man said, punching towards Shigure.


'Slow Down' A backhead arrow appeared in Shigure's eyes, hidden from the world.


Everything in his domain slowed down, including the man.


'This one was unstable, like a cracked pipe under pressure... Let's move on to the next phase.' Shigure's eyes gleamed with a calculating edge.


"Well, I always wanted to try this." Shigure took out a spray bottle.


"Is that perfume?" The man asked in a confused voice.


His confusion didn't have to last long as he found the boy spraying the perfume on one part of his body, followed by lighting a fire with a lighter.


"Hmph. My scales wouldn't be penetrated by that lousy excuse of fire." He snorted, looking at the spray of fire being hurled at his pelvic region.


The man tried to hit the boy, but he dodged again easily while continuously spraying.


After a minute, Shigure stopped.


"Are you done with your meaningless struggle?"


Contrary to man's expectations, the boy brought another bottle from his bag, opened it and splashed its contents on the spot he tried to burn.


Water met the heated scales.


CRACK


"Huh?"


"Wait, it worked?"


Both Ryu and Shigure looked bewildered at the sight.


"Wait, you weren't expecting this outcome?"


"Yeah, I had seen this feat somewhere online, didn't think it was real." Shigure shrugged.


Ryu couldn't believe that the scales he was so proud of were broken so easily by a boy.


WHISTLE


Before he could fully process this outcome, something moving through the air was heard.


Due to still being in the domain where time was slow, he couldn't react.


Crack


"Aghhhhhhhhhhh" The man shouted, landing on his posterior on the ground, clutching his pelvic region where the boy struck the metal rod.


"Wow, your screams are quite tamer compared to the last guy. I wonder if you could shout as loud as him." Despite the mechanical voice, Ryu could feel the amusement in his voice.


At that time, he realised one truth.


He was not dealing with a brat having an overpowered quirk but rather a psychopath.


Shivers ran through his spine at the realisation.


"Wh-What do you want?!" Ryu asked, trying to buy time.


Shigure cracked his knuckles, twirling the staff with his right hand "Balance."


"W-What?"


"You have two. Seems unfair."


"..." Ryu was stuck speechless by the boy, wondering if he was serious.


His initial assumption of dealing with a psychopath only solidified in his mind.


"You're not normal... You're just pretending." Looking back at the conversation with the boy, Ryu realised that it was odd for a person to take his explanations for his actions at face value. He now realised that something was wrong with the kid.


Shigure didn't flinch, just tilted his head.


"So are you. That's why you wear the mask."


"Huh?" Ryu tilted his head.


Before he could retort—


CRACK


The staff hit him again in the groin.


"Ughhh..." He tried to recreate the scales in his groin area, however, he realised the rate of recreation was quite slow, suspecting the boy was using his weird quirk on that area.


"Please, don't disappoint me."


<Warning: Excessive force detected. Target is no longer fighting.> Shigure ignored Ki.


What followed was the longest, most painful stretch of Ryu's life.


He never imagined pain like this.


The boy had experience with where and how to hit, such that even after several hits, he didn't lose his manhood, which Ryu thought was impossible until now.


What he didn't know was that in the last month, many people had been in the same position as Ryu, but unlike him, they were not lucky enough to face an experienced Shigure.


Midway through this torture, Shigure had broken scales on multiple areas of his body, similarly to before, and started hitting him there too.


Each unexpected hit to the groin carried with it the weight of anticipation, not just pain—he never knew when it would come again.


Instinct took over—Ryu rolled onto his stomach, trying to protect himself.


"Smart move... you're too heavy to flip over anyway," Shigure said, his breathing roughened.


Only the man's groans broke the alley's silence.


'This shouldn't be enjoyable. Yet, here I am.' Shigure's heart pounded.


"You know what? I'm done. Had my fun. Mission's complete." The boy cleaned his staff with a tissue paper before putting it in his waist bag.


He took a few steps back.


Ryu didn't believe it at first. He waited, tense, then slowly stood—ready to drop again if it was a trick.


"Also." Ryu stopped, his breath stuck in his throat, hearing the mechanical voice.


"I won't feed you some bullshit about turning over a new leaf. We both know that's not happening."


Blink.


Ryu blinked behind his mask.


He turned, eyes landing on the boy's visor.


"Just don't let me catch you again."


A shiver ran through his spine for the nth time.


He bolted, fear overriding pain.


Shigure watched him go, unreadable.


"CM."


<Communication Mode turned off>


"That's a terrible coping mechanism. Can't believe I've actually turned into a sadist." Shigure muttered, half in disbelief.


<Confirmed. This marks the ninth incident in three weeks where you ignored my warnings.>


"Yeah… sorry." Shigure turned and started walking out of the alley.


To his surprise, someone was standing at the exit.


The man was still—like a freeze-frame. Average height, but the way he stood filled the alley. Relaxed shoulders. Chin tilted just enough to seem unbothered.


His hair, ash-blond and messy, swept back in natural arcs, like wind had always been part of his styling routine. A few front tufts stood out defiantly above his forehead, forming soft spikes that added to the sense of motion even in stillness.


Golden-brown eyes—sharp, birdlike—watched without judgment. Just understanding.


Faint stubble shadowed his chin—not messy, not intentional. Just there, like shaving wasn't a priority.


His black shirt shimmered with thin gold waves—like ripples in water. Over it, a tan jacket trimmed in white fur, open just enough to show the shirt. Slits at the shoulders made it clear: this wasn't just for fashion.


Brilliant red feathers peeked from the slits—folded, compact, impossible to ignore.


He had studs in his earlobes, giving a delinquent-like feeling.


Shigure didn't need to be informed by Ki who the man in front of him was.


It was none other than Hawks.


***


Join my Patreon to support me and get up to 10 advanced chapters:


- DESIRE96


(search it up)


Check out my other works.


Join my Discord to talk to our community. The link is in the synopsis.
s

 

[Desire]

Shigure met Hawk's gaze. Hawks didn't blink.


His heart thundered—louder than thought. Then—


<EMERGENCY! The person is identified as Rank 19 Hero across Japan— Haw—>


CRACK


Shigure blinked, his visor now cut into two pieces by a feather.


His body moved on instinct—he bolted.


Just like Ryu—running, desperate.


'Speed Up'


His domain snapped into place—tight, invisible to everyone but him.


He found the world slowed down, his eyes now morphed into a white forward head arrow, hidden behind his contacts.


He sprinted flat-out.


He didn't care about his stamina depleting— He couldn't afford to.


He cut sharp corners through the alleys, guided by instinct alone.


He didn't care about getting caught on the cameras— His mind couldn't afford such a distraction.


He didn't care about crashing multiple garbage cans on the ground due to the reckless parkour.


With a single-minded focus, he did only one thing— He ran.


Ran like no tomorrow.


He didn't care about the black cat he almost trampled. He couldn't afford to care about another person's well-being.


He didn't care about almost crashing into two people in the alley doing something. He couldn't aff—"Kyaaah..."


He blinked, glancing at the bottom left of his vision.


Two almost naked people. One man and one woman.


The world being slowed for him gave him quite a clear sight of them.


"I am sorry," Shigure said in the most apologetic tone he could muster.


'Their luck was quite bad. This is one of the best spots for doing such things.' He shoved the guilt down and moved on.


After a few minutes of running, he found himself on top of a building, curled into a dark corner, silent.


'I think I finally lost him.' He thought, his breathing ragged, shallow.


Shigure could slow time for himself, but still had to run the entire journey.


It might seem like his speed was faster to others due to his quirk, but to him, he had done the entire journey normally— draining his stamina reserves.


His quirk is sometimes mistaken for an enhancer, but it's clearly not. His max speed or momentum is limited by the normal top speed of his ordinary body. Quite complicated physics when such quirk logic is applied.


CRUNCH.


Shigure quickly bit on the chocolate, intending to get back his reserves to full.


"There you are. I almost lost you for a second."


His gaze snapped left—Hawks standing on the railings. A few inches away from his head.


Even before he registered this fact, his quirk instantly activated, his domain intending to engulf Hawks.


Hawks suddenly jumped back from the ceiling, his wings flapping at a speed too fast to track, hurling him more than a hundred metres in the sky.


"Interesting quirk. Can't see it coming. Guess all that instinct training I went through was worth it." Hawks nonchalantly said.


Shigure blinked.


Crunch.


He stayed seated, chewing slowly, thinking fast.


To Hawks, the boy moved like a video on 5x speed.


Before he knew it, Shigure was done. He slowly got up, shoving the wrapper back in his bag and then put the same hand... inside his t-shirt.


"Oops. Busted." Hawks smirked at Shigure, who frowned, holding a red feather.


'Due to being too focused on myself, this feather went undetected in my domain. How careless.' Shigure threw the feather out of his domain.


After his quirk awakened again, reaching tier 3, he could be spatially aware of things inside his domain, albeit with intense focus.


"Listen, I just want to talk to you."


"No."


Multiple feathers rushed at him, intending to restrain him.


Shigure closed his eyes.


'Slow Down.'


All the feathers heading towards him slowed down.


Shigure jumped back, his hand going towards his waist bag.


"Stop... Or I will jump." Shigure threatened, balanced on the railing.


"You... I would be able to catch you before you reach the ground." Hawks was dumbfounded.


"I will slow you down before you reach me. I'll already be dead."


Hawks tilted his head, confused.


"If you are trying to threaten me with bad PR with your death, then you are being delusional." Hawks deadpan.


He stayed silent. Hawks saw it as a hesitation in his next move.


Just as Hawks was going to move, the boy spoke again.


"I am part of the Meta-Liberation Army. I even know the identity of the leader."


Blink.


Hawks blinked. "Kid... stop kidding. You are not in trouble, but if you keep saying such things, then it would be problematic to turn a blind eye."


Hawks didn't believe the kid, who looked barely 12 years old, to be part of one of the most notorious villain groups currently active.


"I have the information. My quirk is quite valuable, and I am smart. Believe it or not, this is the truth." The boy didn't take back his claims.


'Though he does have a unique quirk, which I suspect to be time-related, still...'


"Tell me the name of the city where the Meta-Liberation army made their major public move last year."


Shigure's eyebrows tightened, his expression screaming, "Are you serious?" as if what Hawks asked was common knowledge.


He met Hawk's eyes and—


jumped back from the railing.


Hawk's body moved on instinct, flying towards the boy.


Just as he came above the boy, he found his body slowed down. He gazed at the boy, who stared back at him. The boy's gaze was calm.


He drew a gun—and fired.


"Is that a grappling hook?" Keigo asked in shock.


He watched in shock as the hook moved at a normal speed for a few moments before its speed increased by multiple folds in his pov.


'We are slowed down.' Hawks instantly came to that conclusion. His gaze went back to the falling boy, who now had a smirk on his face.


'So he could slow down and speed up things in a certain area, which is highly likely to be limited by the distance from him as the core.'


"Please don't chase me. I have been told not to talk to suspicious strangers." With that, Shigure got pulled by the force of the grappling hook, leaving Hawks still slowed down.


'He fooled me.'


After a few seconds, Hawks regained his normal speed.


'60 meters. That should be his distance limit... No, knowing this brat, he might be intentionally showing less to confuse me. Let's go with the assumption of 150 metres.' With that, Hawks flapped his wings, dashing towards Shigure.


---


Shigure found himself doing a mixture of high-level parkour with his grappling hook.


'Is this how it feels to be Spider-Man? This does feel amazing.' For a second, Shigure forgot that he was being chased.


He called his hook back, dropped to the ground in a roll, before bolting out of an alley to the main road.


'I still should not be caught by the cameras due to the advanced face mask I am using. But, it would be annoying if any more of my quirk is revealed. Going to any hero school in the future might become tough.' Shigure started jogging on the foot walk.


'Fuck that. Priority is to get him off my trail.' Shigure looked around, his eyes brightening when he saw a truck, open in the back with multiple water canisters present, moving towards him.


He looked at the driver and quietly jumped into the moving truck with the help of his quirk.


He quickly made his entire figure small, making it hard to locate him from a top view.


One minute went like that, and Shigure started believing that he had finally got Hawks from his trail—


Before looking at a man flying in the sky.


'FUCK... No, He hasn't noticed me yet. It means that I have almost lost him. Just need to lose him now.' He forced himself to be optimistic.


However, he noticed Hawk's was still flying in the truck's direction.


Shigure would have thought that man was pretending not to know him if he had not passed the truck Shigure was in.


Shigure looked sideways and realised that the truck was on a bridge.


A bridge he recognised.


'The truck would have to stop at the base coz there's a traffic signal. There's a chance that Hawks will notice me then. Let's not take the risk.' Shigure nodded to himself and, while looking at the flying figure of Hawks getting farther from him, he jumped on top of the truck.


The truck was moving near the edge of the bridge.


He jumped—off the truck, off the bridge.


'Let's hide under the bridge using the grappling hook,' Shigure thought while looking at the water around 200 metres below him.


He aimed the gun at one of the pillars where a small platform was present.


Click.


However, at that moment, Shigure realised something.


The grappler failed.


***


Join my Patreon to support me and get up to 10 advanced chapters:


- DESIRE96


(search it up)


Check out my other works.

 

[Desire]

Date- 10 August 2XXX


The grappler failed to fire.


Shigure's eyes widened. He yanked the trigger again.


Still not working.


He yanked it again and again—nothing.


'Speed Up' The world slowed for him, and Shigure tried to find a solution.


To an outsider, he was normally falling. But if Shigure started flailing his arms, it would be quite obvious that his fall was anything but normal.


A full minute passed—still, nothing. He could only helplessly watch the water approaching him.


'Well, at least it's water. I still have a high chance to survive.' He sucked in a breath and shut his eyes before impact.


His brow tightened. The expected impact didn't come.


He opened his eyes—feathers clung to his body, holding him up. Somehow holding his body despite their small number.


He looked up and saw the man giving him an unimpressed look.


"I got captured." He muttered.


Hawks opened his mouth... before closing it. His eyes narrowed—calculating. "Brat... I told you I wasn't coming to capture you. Just wanted to chat."


"Liar." Shigure didn't believe him.


The man sighed, but didn't say anything.


Both of them started flying away, a palpable silence between them.


"Where are we going?" Shigure broke the silence.


"A cafe."


"Still keeping up the act. I guess top heroes do need to keep up their act." Shigure shook his head, resigned.


"Hehe, you have got a good humour, kid."


"I am not a kid."


"Oh? My bad. You look like a kid."


"Mind You. I am considered a legal adult." Shigure retorted.


He loathed that word—kid.


He was a fucking adult mentally, and with the amount of time he had experienced due to his quirk was enough to call himself at least in Top 10 most oldest people in the world.


In Japan, few could rival his mental age—maybe All for One, maybe that ghost of a brother.


'Though I wonder if my age would count. It was pretty much grinding only. I think multiple types of experience are required to say you are older.' Despite being this old, Shigure had enough self-awareness to know that he couldn't be considered mature for his mental age.


He would say that he has regressed in maturity since his first awakening.


'Looking back, I have started going insane since I arrived in this world. Though it is valid coz I was put in a kid's body, stripped of all the freedom an adult has, the real insanity was after my first awakening only.'


Next thing he knew, he was across from Hawks—seated, surrounded, stuck.


Shigure stared at him. "Wait, are we really in a cafe? Or is it an undercover for this place?"


"I told you before. We are just in a normal cafe."


Somebody came to take their orders. Shigure ordered something sweet.


If he were here, he might as well eat something sweet.


'I don't care if they are going to poison me or make me unconscious. What's the worst that could happen?' He told himself it wasn't temptation. Just strategy.


'The worst they could do is mind f*ck me with some quirk. Good luck trying to find something out of my memories, which have distorted beyond recognition. Unless Nezu saw them, no one could decode those memories.


And even if he gets it somehow, it would take a considerable time even for him. Time which they won't get as I would be dead by then.' Shigure briefly glanced at his chest.


"This place isn't normal," Shigure muttered, looking at the waitress walking away.


"Indeed." Hawks nodded. "After all, it's a maid cafe."


Hawks ignored Shigure's judgmental stare, looking out past the skyline.


The cafe was on top of a skyscraper and was one of the prime spots for Keigo to relax.


"You should remove that mask and wig of yours. I am surprised that it didn't fall off during the chase."


"..." Shigure silently stared at him. He scanned the room—exit routes, blind spots, and distance to the door.


After half a minute of contemplation, he removed it.


'Fuck it. I don't care.'


"You look younger without the wig. Like, way younger." Hawks blinked, carefully examining Shigure's face.


"I turned 12 recently." No point hiding it—Hawks would find out by morning.


"Is that so... I thought you were a legal adult." Hawks stroked his chin.


"That I am."


"I see." Hawks nodded.


There was silence before it was broken again.


"Lenses?"


Shigure paused. "How can you tell?"


"I just have a good eye... good eye for seeing disguises." An indescribable look appeared on Hawks, before getting replaced by his nonchalant attitude.


"Hmm. I won't be removing this. My eyes are blue only. You have enough info already" Shigure said in a matter-of-fact tone, not intending to budge on it.


He didn't like people knowing when his quirk was active.


Hearing Shigure's tone, Hawks nodded, deciding it was not worth pursuing.


Then, their orders came.


He dug into the oversized chocolate cake.


"So... How about we go with introductions first? I think that would be a better way to break the ice, no?"


Shigure continued eating the cake while staring at Hawks.


His stare said it all: You think I'll make this easy?


Hawks wryly smiled before grinning.


"Okay. If you won't tell me your name, I will call you however I want."


Shigure shrugged. He didn't care.


"Let's go with rip-off Gojo. Has a nice ring to it."


Shigure's fork stopped a few centimetres away from his mouth.


He blinked.


"No." And then, instinctively replied.


"Why not?" Hawks said in an amused tone. "You even have powers similar to his, no? He has powers related to space, you with time. Also, your manifestation is like a domain. That, without considering your white hair + blue eyes package."


"No." Shigure ignored the fact that Hawks had already analysed his quirk.


He saw it coming during the chase.


"Tch." Hawks clicked his tongue.


"Anyway, I didn't expect one of the rising stars to be an otaku." Shigure quickly changed the topic, not wanting Hawks to give him even more ridiculous names.


Currently, Hawks is a hot topic throughout Japan. In just a few months, he rose from a starter hero to a person in the top 20.


"Technically not an otaku. I've only watched the mainstream stuff." Keigo shrugged, sipping on his latte.


"I see." After finishing the cake, he started eating the ice cream while ordering another cake.


"Anyway, what were you doing... so late?" Hawks asked, looking at his watch.


2:18 am


"I was beating some villains and thugs alike. You know... normal things." Shigure nonchalantly said, his expression betraying nothing.


"Oh? Interesting. How was your experience so far?" Hawks decided to ask him.


For a moment, both ignored that Hawks had seen Shigure "beating" Ryu.


"It's fun, I guess. I even discovered a new side of mine." Shigure smiled.


"You smiled when you said that. Must've been… liberating, right?"


Shigure's smile freezes. He raises an eyebrow.


"Let me guess. Reflective listening, labelling emotions, pacing for rapport… Are you running therapy protocol on me or trying to get a confession?"


Hawks blinks.


Then he grinned—busted, like a bird caught mid-flight.


"You noticed. And here I thought I was being subtle."


Shigure shrugs.


"I studied a bit of psychology too. Not everyone who's 'crazy' skipped their homework."


"I wonder about how much that 'bit' is. What exactly gave it away?" Hawks asked, reflecting on his entire interaction with him.


Shigure paused, framing his next words properly.


"I would say that you were pretty good at being subtle. Too good." Shigure narrowed his eyes. "The way you blended in. I would have been normally fooled for that to be real you."


"Is that so?" Hawks lazily smiled. However, his eyes didn't smile. Rather, they gleamed unnaturally.


"Indeed. You must be a good liar. Anyway, if not for me mentally profiling you myself, I wouldn't have come to notice this fact. Your posture, tone, the pitch—everything was perfect... perfect to make me comfortable."


"I will take that as a compliment." Hawk smiled. "Which model do you use for mental profiling?"


"CBF... a modified version of CBF."


"Oh? What a coincidence. I also use CBF. Though only the original, coz never needed to modify it... until now."


"I can see that." Shigure got back to eating his ice cream.


There was silence again.


"Anyway, how did you know my location? I purposely chose that location due to it being discreet." Shigure asked.


Hawks paused. "I was just strolling. Today was my off-day, and I thought I would try to meet the famous vigilante who had appeared in Saitama just a few weeks ago. Guess, my luck was good."


"Famous?" Shigure furrowed his brows, tilting his head.


"They call you Heretic Smasher."


***


Join my Patreon to support me and get up to 10 advanced chapters:


- DESIRE96


(search it up)


Check out my other works.

 

[Desire]

"They call you Heretic Smasher."


"The what?" Shigure's eyes went wide, face draining of color.


"Pfft...Look at your face. How can a person be that expressive?"


Shigure ignored him and checked his phone.


Minutes later, Shigure slumped in defeat.


'This must be what Ki flagged as "low priority" yesterday. Should have listened to her...'


He stabbed at the food and ate furiously.


"It's just a temporary name. It can always change."


"Mhm." He hoped it would change.


'I will attack those websites that brought up this name in the first place.' Shigure promised himself.


Shigure ordered dessert. Again.


"So... you're really not arresting me?" Shigure finally addressed the elephant in the room.


"Why would I?"


"Well... I am breaking the law... Using quirk in a social area, and also for ... violence."


"Hmmm." Hawks rubbed his chin. "We would need evidence for that."


Shigure's lips twitched. "Aren't you a witness?"


"Nah. Didn't see a thing. Moreover, you can't trust human witnesses these days."


'You are fucking 19th ranked hero. Who won't believe you?' Shigure barely stopped himself from saying that.


"Well, we were having a chase throughout the entire city. Pretty sure that we were captured in one."


"You were in disguise." Hawks shrugged.


"You did capture me in the end."


"My target escaped when I was saving a drunk person from getting isekai'd"


Shigure's jaw dropped. "What about the cameras when you brought me to this cafe?" "I took a route where we weren't captured. Sky dominance." A smug look appeared on Hawk's face.


Shigure stared, speechless.


"Why are you doing this? What's in it for you?" He finally spoke.


"Hmm, now that's an interesting question. I wonder why." Hawks took another sip.


Shigure stared him in the eye. Hawks stared back, amused.


"Okay. Before your veins around your eyes start bulging, I will say it." Hawks lifted his arms in a surrender position.


"Hmph."


SLURP


Shigure took a big gulp of his Espresso.


Sleep be damned—he wasn't sleeping after tonight anyway.


"Well, you will be getting into a hero school, no? In around 2 to 3 years. Moreover, I heard the minimum age requirement for a provisional hero license would be dropped to 14 years. You could always try that. This would be a good experience."


SLURP


"Me unconvinced." Shigure shook his head.


"What is making you unconvinced?"


"Let's even assume that you could let a child experience vigilantism, which sounds plausible given you are one of the most influential people in the country currently.


What is suspicious is that you clearly know that I am insane, yet you are giving me this "privilege." Aren't you concerned about whether I will start killing people? Or even worse, become a villain or stay a vigilante. After all, most people prefer to stay like that rather than become heroes coz of many reasons," Shigure rattled off in one breath.


"Your lungs are really good. Well, don't worry. I would be monitoring you, so you won't be turning into a murderer anytime soon. Anyway, about your second question. I don't care." Hawks shrugged.


"Huh?"


"Hero, vigilante—I don't care. As long as you continue to help people, it doesn't matter."


Shigure blinked. "That's... weirdly idealistic."


"A practical one. Results speak for themselves." Hawks took out his phone and showed him.


"Since your "debut", the night crimes in Saitama have reduced by 10 per cent. That might not sound much, but it is crazy when we see that it was done in just a few weeks."


'Those websites are not that bad.' Shigure gave them a mental thumbs up.


"Oh... Cool." 'So does he not care about the villains—' "I will address that point now." Hawks put his phone back in his pocket.


'Did I say that out loud?'


"For criminals like that Ryu guy, I don't mind if you torture them or not as long as you don't break them completely. That's fine. Those guys don't have any rights anyway."


"The fuck?" Keigo's nonchalance caught Shigure off guard.


'Is this really one of the top heroes? Where is that deku kind of guy who would fight even for his enemies?'


"But, I hope you would refrain from doing it on petty thieves or similar criminals. They do have rights. Yeah, this might sound a bit harsh, but it's acceptable as long as it gives results."


Shigure wasn't expecting the future number three hero to say this when he woke up this morning.


'I guess he did a lot of grey work as Hero Association's dog. His outlook is bound to be different.'


"Okay?... Just give me the factors to make a decision on whether this person should be tortured or not. I don't trust my moral compass." Shigure uncertainly said.


"Hmm, this brings me to the root cause. You. Let's talk about it." Hawks clapped his hands. "Give me the mental profile you built of yourself. To help you, first, I need to understand you."


Shigure raised an eyebrow. "Bold of you to assume that I would let an unknown psychologist know me... this deeply."


"Hey, I am not going to give it to anybody else. I am going to check it out myself. A secret between two of us." Hawks pouted.


"Don't think you're qualified for that."


"I have the necessary licenses." Hawks showed the soft copy on his phone, which Shigure carefully examined.


"License means nothing without experience." Shigure shook his head.


"I have enough experience. I have even helped multiple pro heroes."


Shigure didn't believe him.


"Oh? Then would you mind answering some of my questions?"


---


Half an hour later.


"Okay, you certainly know more than I, but this doesn't mean you are an expert," Shigure admitted defeat.


"Well, so, will you give it now?"


"No. I don't trust you." Shigure shook his head.


The expertise excuse was just a deflection.


What Hawks was asking was basically who he was at a fundamental level. Normally, this is done by a psychologist with a patient over multiple sessions. That was also not as detailed as what Shigure had done.


'My self-awareness is good... Nah, I just had a lot of time to study myself.'


It's like letting someone read your core—no masks, no filters.


"Hmm, fair. Just let me know when you decide to trust me." Hawks didn't pursue him on the matter anymore. He knew that his request was a very personal one.


They drifted to safer topics— from the latest anime to the trending songs.


It was a staple conversation between otakus.


"By the way... back in the alley, I noticed something. You don't see people as people, do you? But rather as a source of entertainment. No?"


Silence stretched. Shigure tilted his head, a confused expression on his face.


"What do you mean?"


"Hmm, nothing. Just think of it as wild ramblings of an old man."


"Mhm"


'He's dangerous. For real.' For the first time since their meeting, Shigure looked at Hawks differently.


***


A/n- I think this is my first author note since starting this story. Anyway, Will try to keep it brief. Just read the bold italicised words if you don't wanna read the whole thing.


What do you think about Hawk's personality? I don't think I made him OOC, but that would be for you to judge, as after this, he will change. Shigure's existence would be making an impact on him. Not only him, but other characters too. Though how they would change is for you to find out.


The psychologist part was one that I created on my own as it did feel in alignment with Hawk's character, coz of his upbringing, his time as being trained to be Lady Nagant's successor and how he was able to infiltrate the League.


This will also allow the interaction between Hawks and Shigure to be interesting, as he has the highest chance to understand what Shigure exactly is.





Which brings us to the second part I want to address— Shigure.


I would be honest with you. I was pretty much clueless initially about how I wanted Shigure to be. I gave much thought to a normal person given the ability to have a time chamber.


Well... he would go insane, that's for sure. As much as I like reading those cultivation novels, I believe that it's quite ridiculous that those millennial-old cultivators are normally sane.


At least, my MC didn't have what it takes to remain completely normal.


Shigure has gone insane.


How? Well, you could already start seeing symptoms from ch4, but to clear it for you guys, Hawk's last statement was correct...mostly correct. That is also the reason for his Sadism, or his interactions with other people.


I won't comment much on it, but I need to clear up the sadism part in this fic. I think I went a bit too far with hitting balls again and again... It was pretty hard for me to write it, and I had to turn off the imagination part of my brain for a moment.


That's also the reason I added other elements(though I didn't describe them much) in the "beating" as... I think hitting a person on the balls repeatedly... is... Anyway, I will describe the torture in other ways too in the future.





The third thing is about the world. You have already seen this due to Ki's existence, yes, the world has more than robots. I kind of find it a plot hole in the original that they have combat robots, but not advanced AI.


Like, how are you expecting robots to operate on their own? Anyway, AI would be integrated in various workspaces, you would see that as you read the story, which brings me to the next point— Quirks vs Tech.


In the canon, tech has reached a point where a quirkless person could also be a hero. (Money)


This world would also reach that stage at some point, and seeing how it is more technologically advanced than the Cannon world, I introduced the concept of quirks having tiers to balance things out.


All quirks are not created equal.


Anyway, let's wrap this up here.


***


Join my Patreon to support me and get up to 10 advanced chapters:


- DESIRE96


(search it up)


Check out my other works.

 

[Desire]

13th August


BEEP BEEP BEEP


"Ugh..." Shigure slammed the alarm. His blanket slid off.


'Five more minutes,' he muttered, pulling the blanket over his head.


"Ja..."


His brow creased—something didn't sound right.


His brain latched onto the sound before he knew it.


"JAMES." His eyes shot open, followed by sitting straight up.


"Oh good, you're finally up." He found a black-haired, middle-aged woman standing with a ladle in her hand.


"Mom?" He tilted his head.


"Your results are out today, right? Check them quickly."


"Right... Why do you have the ladle in your hand?" Shigure asked with his eyes twitching.


"Cooking, obviously." She said before the door closed, leaving Shigure, no, James alone in the room.


The first thing James did was look at his phone.


13th August.


"Why do I feel deja vu?" He walked towards the dressing table.


He stared into the mirror. The face felt like his… and also not.


"How paradoxical." His gaze shifted to a steel bottle lying on the dressing table.


He picked it up—and dropped it.


Thump.


The bottle hit his left foot.


"No pain? Dream? Or drugged?" He stroked his chin, curious.


CLICK


The sound snapped him back. Everything returned at once.


"Interesting. I didn't know dreams could be like this, " he thought while looking back at the memory this dream represented.


THUMP THUMP THUMP


His chest thundered—too fast, too real.


"That... is surprising. The emotions...are raw...so raw... How long has it been?" A melancholic look appeared on his face.


He couldn't remember the last time he felt anything this real.


"I remember now. The last time I felt this...was when this wasn't a dream, but a reality."


He didn't feel such emotions when he was reincarnated.


He didn't feel much anger when he had to deal with kids.


He didn't feel... anything this intense until now.


"Well, let's get this over with."


He moved through the motions, just like he had that day— freshening up, followed by breakfast.


"The website is not working, probably because so many people are checking it." He muttered to his parents, eyes glued to the screen.


Understandable—150,000 students were crashing the site.


'It should be accessible around the afternoon. To be honest, this really was a rat race. This many people just after Round 1. During the Round 1 result, you might have to wait for more than a day to get the result, even if you are lucky.' He shook his head at his previous life's choices.


Round 1 had more than a million students around his age competing.


People spend their whole 3 years of high school on this exam, and sometimes some people even spend their entire middle school and high school to crack it.


A person's rank would determine the college and the branch they would get. Most of the colleges were decided based on the rank of ROUND 1.


The top 10 percentile are eligible to sit for Round 2.


The colleges that you can get from the ranks of Round 1 are the most elite in the entire country. Only the top 0.5 per cent of the entire 1 million students get seats in these colleges.


James had been a hard-working student... at least until his final year in high school. His rank had been deteriorating in the mock tests since the last few months of his second year, and when the vacation came, he became distant from his studies.


Late second year? Just manhwas. Then web novels. Then fanfics.


The only thing he did was go to classes at his cram school... Well, it's not like it was an option. His parents didn't know that their kid was not studying the whole day, but was doing this.


He kept it hidden. They had not liked him playing games or watching fiction in general before he got to high school.


For the middle class in his country, studying was the only safe and sure way to leave the middle class.


So, he didn't blame them.


James stared at his roll number, waiting for the hit. He looked at the time.


'It's about time.'


He didn't remember exactly when he got the result, but his gut told him it would be successful now.


So, he did just that.


Then it hit the screen.


Rank- 18XXX


Score: 34 per cent.


He exhaled. His face didn't move.


'This year was fucked. If only any other institute made the paper, I would have gotten around an 11 to 12k rank and would have gotten into one of those colleges. I shouldn't have told my expected rank in the first place to my family otherwise, they wouldn't have been disappointed this much.'


To get into the lowest branch of the worst college(Which was arguably comparable to top colleges Round 1) with his Round 2 rank required, James had to have 3 or 4 more marks. And to get a "decent" enough college with the worst branch required around 20 more marks.


Some of his friends with around a 10k rank had later chosen colleges from ROUND 1 for better branches.


Unfortunately, He'd screwed up Round 1. Leading him to be in the worst position possible.


'What did I say to console myself at that time?... hmm, that at least I am in the top 1-1.5 per cent despite not studying in the last year...Perfect lie, right?'


He got up and decided to tell the results to his parents.


This—this was the moment he feared.


To this day, despite traversing a world, having more than a century's worth of memories, Shigure still vividly remember the first and the only time he had heard his father's voice tremble.


He still didn't know whether it was due to his father waking up from sleep.


Though he thinks that he already knows the answer.


His dreams wouldn't let him forget.


"It is what it is. I would support your decision on whatever future path you choose. Decide on your college carefully."


James found himself alone in the room.


Drip.


His eyes burned.


"I am sorry."


He looked silently at the table.


|| "If everyone is not..." ||


James looked up, his eyebrows furrowing.


'What's this sound?'


|| "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10…" ||


Shigure's eyes opened frantically, his hand instinctively going towards his phone, already turning off the alarm.


His other hand went towards his chest, already feeling his heart beating fast.


THUMP THUMP THUMP


That ringtone. From his old life. His panic switch.


A primal fear.


It was his magnum opus, and he only used it if something important was going to happen and he needed to be awake at that time.


"It used to be one of my favourite songs... At least I learned my lesson, never use your favourite songs as alarms."


He got up from the bed and walked towards the mirror.


"Oh." He calmly looked at his reflection, his face wet due to the dream.


"I feel... nothing," he whispered.


'Despite knowing the possibility that I won't be able to see my parents anymore, I don't feel anything.'


8 years ago, the same thought had made him feel a slight sorrow, but overall, it was not that much different from what he is currently feeling— indifference.


His lips curled into a mocking smile.


"Hahahahahahaha"


He laughed.


"HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA"


And laughed.


"HAHAhaha"


and laughed.


"hahaaahahahha"


He laughed until the tears came. And then kept laughing.


'Can I really not love anyone? I knew this already, didn't I?


If I can't love the people who gave me everything—who loved me without asking—


Then how the hell could I love some stranger I barely know?
Love... maybe it's just a story people tell themselves.
Maybe I was never built for it.'


"WHY?! WHY CAN'T I FEEL ANYTHING?!" He threw the phone in his hand.


THUD


The phone met the wall.


Shigure, or more specifically James, had an insecurity of being unable to make meaningful relationships.


He found it hard to connect with people on a deeper level.


Yes, he had some friends, but none could be considered a "best friend" from his perspective.


He thought that with time, such people would come into his life, but now it seems it really was just his wish.


His new life had just solidified that belief, and all his attempts to deny it had just been used as fuel for it.


Shigure had always tried to ignore this flaw by using anime and manga—fictions as a coping mechanism. However, after a point, he reached a roadblock.


He was out of fiction to explore.


So, he decided to divert his attention somewhere else.


He had taken Computer Science as his major, and AI was becoming interesting popular, so he spent all his energy in that direction.


Even in this life, he had used his quirk to mainly focus on that field.


It was the only thing he could call a speciality.


That was his initial motivation when he decided to walk on this path.


Whooosh


Shigure took a deep breath.


'If that's who I am, then it's fine. I don't need a deeper level of relationship to enjoy my life. Just a pretence of a relationship is fine as well. People are just tools for me to make me feel emotions. I don't need to love anybody.'


He came to terms with his real self.


He had already come to it a long time ago.


He then made his way towards the bathroom.


"I am a mess." He directly took a bath.


'It's a shame that I can't repay them. If in future I get the chance to repay them, I would definitely do it.' Shigure made a note while thinking about his parents.


Though he might not feel much emotion towards his parents, he is still grateful for their giving him birth and raising him.


He doesn't know whether it was good or bad parenting. He didn't care. If not for that specific way, he wouldn't be Shigure Hatsune, he is today.


That is one of the deepest wishes of his previous life, and had even survived the time dilation to the current him.


He stepped out, towel-draped, and walked to the phone.


It lay there without a scratch.


'N*kia baby. Maybe I will ask Hawks to do a drop test from the stratosphere. I won't be surprised if it survives without any scratch.' Shigure chuckled as he opened the phone.


21:37


He looked at the notifications, 9 out of 10 to be reminders: "Mission with bird head."


"Fuck, I am going to be late." Shigure cursed.


***


A/n- Lol, the exams James gave were inspired by the JEE exam. One of my friends had given that exam, and I decided to use that for James's backstory. Though James is from US... Maybe should have thought about the background before. Anyway, this means that his previous world is kind of weird, let's just go with that... I am not freaking going to use my brain cells to flesh out that world T_T. Maybe


Anyway, I was going to add this back in ch3, but decided against it until now.


What you witnessed is the biggest flaw of Shigure.


***


Join my Patreon to support me and get up to 10 advanced chapters:


- DESIRE96


(search it up)


Check out my other works.

 

[Desire]

Date- 10th August Time - 11:00


'Somehow, I slept. Even after last night.' Shigure stretched his whole body.


It was sore due to the "exercise" he did with Hawks last night.


DING DONG


Shigure looked at the door. 'Should I or should I not?' As if the devil himself was whispering in his ears, temptation crept into his entire being.


"Nah. Not in the mood." He received the parcel normally this time.


He had ordered a device that could sharpen blades.


He took out a knife from nowhere and started to sharpen it.


Due to the loud noise of this activity, he failed to hear the knocking sounds, followed by a sliding sound.


Seconds passed. His brow creased.


'Why do I feel like somebody is looking at me?' Shigure turned his head back and looked at a man standing behind him.


"What are you doing here?" He asked with a vein popping on his forehead.


"I knocked, but you didn't respond." Hawks nonchalantly shrugged.


"Maybe next time, try to come from the door, not the balcony."


"I will try." He wouldn't.


'It hasn't even been 12 hours, yet he already got my information and my address. How troublesome.'


"Anyway, will you put that knife down?"


He blinked. The knife was pointed at Hawks.


He lowered the knife.


"So dangerous. Anyway, why do you have a combat knife in the first place?" Hawks asked.


"Self-defence." He didn't blink.


"A knife for self-defence?... You do know that various types of quirks exist which cannot be penetrated by knives."


'Didn't you act scared by this just moments ago?' Shigure rolled his eyes.


"It's for times when I cannot use my quirk. Doesn't need to work every time. Just once."


'Maybe I can kill All For One with a knife to demonstrate that point someday.' He almost laughed. Almost.


"Is that so?" Hawks looked unconvinced. "Never mind. I did know you were smart, but didn't expect you to be a revolutionary inventor."


Shigure rolled his eyes. "I was just lucky."


"I don't think luck can create a revolutionary method. From what I could understand after I made dumb it down, overall, you reduced the training time of LLMs by 30 per cent, which somehow is nuts."


"40 per cent, and technically it was important as it did decrease the amount of resources spent by a decent margin. The next one's the real game-changer."


"Oh? What are you working on? And when can we expect it to be released?"


"I am working on a new architecture. Before year-end. If I don't burn out first."


"I will look forward to it then." Hawks didn't ask further on the topic.


It was all technobabble to him.


"I don't think you came just to say you found my identity, did you?"


"Straight on point. Yup, I actually need you for a mission."


"Oh, a miss— A What? What? How? Why?" Shigure was caught off guard by his statement.


"Chill. We need to capture a drug ring, and some of the heroes will participate in it. It will happen in Saitama, so I thought you would be a good guide."


Shigure frowned. "That's a surface reason, no? What's the real reason?"


"It would be a good way for you to gain experience. I am also curious about how you would perform."


Shigure furrowed his eyebrows, thinking about the offer.


"Can I reject it?"


Hawks raised an eyebrow, surprised. "Well, yeah, you could. As I said, your need is as a guide, which technically is not needed as we already have information about their hideout, and keeping a person on standby to tell us about the city's layout is pretty easy. Though I didn't expect you to reject it."


"I was just asking. Didn't say no. Yet. Tell me the date and time."


'No way I'm missing that kind of chaos.'


"Oh..." Hawks took out his phone.


DING.


Shigure looked at the mail.


"I have sent you the details. It's on 13th August. Come at 22:00 at the location I sent you."


'13th August? What a coincidence.'


---


13th August, 22:06


"You are late." Keigo looked at Shigure with an unimpressed stare.


"Missed the train. Ran out of time." Shigure shrugged.


"Why did you miss the train?"


"Doesn't matter."


BEEP BEEP


Keigo wanted to ask another question, but his earpiece buzzed. He picked up the call.


After talking for a few seconds, he cut the call.


"Anyway, follow me. Others are already here." With that, Hawks started walking deeper into an alley.


"Others?" Shigure tilted his head, walking behind him.


"Yup, there are 3 more people involved in our mission."


"Neat." Shigure deadpanned.


They walked for around a minute before reaching their destination— an open rooftop, already alive with chaos.


A red-eyed man with his hair floating, staring at a green-haired lady, who was obnoxiously laughing.


"You know, if you frown any harder, your face might get stuck that way. You should smile."


"I would rather take my chances."


"Oh, come on! You know you love my company. Admit it, your day gets at least 10% brighter when I walk in. Now, be a good boy and deactivate your quirk."


"Bold assumption. I prefer silence to sonic warfare."


The green-haired lady grinned "You say that, but you always let me hang around. Maybe you're just too shy to admit you enjoy my jokes."


"Or maybe I just don't have the energy to argue."


"So cold!" She gasped. "I'm just trying to lighten the mood. You know, laughter is good for morale. You should try it sometime."


"We are on a mission, I think we need to put our guard up already." The man's red eyes reverted back, his hair now unfloating.


"I'm just tuning your nerves. Stress kills performance."


Shigure watched them. Loud. Messy. Real.


A few metres away from them stood a full-armoured person, his body stance screaming that he didn't know the other two.


"Woah, so many pro-heroes," Shigure muttered, catching the trio's attention. 'Goddamn. They're all real.'


"So, you are finally here." Emi said to Hawks, "This must be our last member..." She paused as she looked at Shigure's visor.


She then turned her head towards the armoured man. "Ingeium... is this your villigante brother? You do two alike." She laughed.


A pair of visors glared at her, causing her laughter to grow louder..


'My visor doesn't look as lame as that guy's.' Shigure clenched his jaws.


"You brought a kid with you?" Aizawa's voice was flat but unmistakably disapproving.


Emi snorted. "I told you. He looks like Ingenium's baby brother."


Shigure said nothing at first.


A tight beat passed.
Behind his visor, his eye twitched.


'Again with this shit.'


Hawks opened his mouth—


"I am a legal adult."


The mechanical voice cut in before anyone else could speak. Calm. Cold. Unshaken.


Aizawa paused. He looked Shigure up and down again, slower this time."Is that so?" His tone softened, if only slightly. "My apologies."


Emi raised an eyebrow, looking more curious now than mocking.


Hawks offered a wry smile.
'Technically correct,' he thought. 'But definitely not how they'd interpret it.'


"Anyway, we are tight on time, so let me first brief the mission again." Hawks quickly said, grabbed everyone's attention.


"Our mission is to capture a drug ring— a group where quirk-related drugs are sold."


Shigure's gaze sharpened. 'Is this prelude to Trigger, or is it trigger? Or is it going to be something else entirely?'


"Though there are multiple problematic ones, the one we will focus on in this mission is HP_420. It is a quirk-enhancing drug, which boosts your quirk in exchange for your lifespan."


'Shit. Repeat doses? That's worse.'


"The main gang present here consists of these members:


Tsuki, the leader. Her quirk is unknown.


Kenji. His quirk is making armour around his body. Though it's dangerously close to mutation types of quirk, so Eraser has to be careful." Hawks glanced at Aizawa. The snort said it all.


"I am not a one-trick pony. None of us is." Aizawa's eyes briefly paused over Shigure. His statement didn't mean him as the latter's abilities were still unknown to the group.


"Anyway, the next members are


Roshi, the guy who is good at various martial arts.


Sonic, that guy could release sound waves or something. Just look out for that.


Now, one question might pop that why these guys don't have villain names despite not being small fries. The reason is..." Shigure tuned out. Something was off.


"Hmm", Shigure tried to grab everyone's attention, but he failed as Hawks continued.


"Anoo..." He loudly said, finally grabbing their attention.


"This meeting place's location shouldn't be known to anybody else, right?"


"Indeed." Hawks nodded. "I even carefully got this province scouted, and this was the most ideal place."


He was standing near the rooftop's railing, similar to Shigure, but unlike him, he was completely facing the trio.


"Is that so?" Shigure tilted his head. He pointed down—low, angled, precise.


"Then what's that rocket, 30 meters out, headed for us?"


***


A/n: Here is today's chapter. Anyway, Wednesday and Thursday are my rest days. So, we will meet on Friday.


Don't miss me too much.


Now, here's the reason why I didn't release the chapter yesterday. (You may skip. In fact, even while writing this, I would suggest you skip.)





So...


You see...


I—


I—I


I got married yesterday!


"..."


*cat blush*


Last night...


My virginity...


Kyaaahhh~


... Just kidding.


I was kidding about the marriage part...


Anyway, today, I am going on a date.


A date with a chocolate-loving girl.


I hope she appears...


Kyaaahhh~


Ahem!


Already got goosebumps while writing this.


Can't wait. Just have to edit chapters 19 and 20, and I am free.


Anyway, that was it.


Sayonara.


...


"Hawk Tuah!"


***


Join my Patreon to support me and get up to 10 advanced chapters:


- DESIRE96


(search it up)


Check out my other works.

 

[Desire]

Hawks and others shifted their gaze in the direction Shigure pointed.


They'd missed it from the railing. But now it was close—too close.


15 metres.


Keigo's wings opened up, and with one flap, he reached high up in the sky.


9 metres.


Feathers shot out—too slow.


3 metres.


The feathers barely reached everyone.


His frown deepened. Not enough feathers.


'Eraser and Shigure are going to...' Hawks paused at the scene.


The rocket burst mid-air—just shy of Shigure.


The flames didn't consume him—they crawled toward him, slow-motion.


'Slow Down.' Everything in Shigure's domain slowed down.


The domain formed a hollow sphere—its centre untouched, isolating him.


'Knock off Infinity.' Shigure blinked at the thought. His face morphed into a frown behind his visor.


He just remembered Keigo's joke from a few nights ago.


Shigure looked at the orange explosion, which was now going in the opposite direction.


No, he was going back.


He didn't need to look. Feathers were pulling him out.


The explosion left the domain—then rushed back toward him. However, history repeated itself when it entered Shigure's domain again.


Soon, the explosion was outrun by Shigure's domain.


He now stood on a terrace of a different building.


BOOM BOOM


The heroes were ambushed. 'Seeing that only 4 people were mentioned, we should have a numerical advantage. Does that mean I can move around in all these battles?'


THUD


Shigure's eyes went downwards, towards a green-coloured bomb.


'That one's no toy.' Before his mind could register, his quirk activated, and he jumped back, towards the railing.


Turning around, in one jump, his one leg landed on the railing.


Another jump from the railing.


BANG


His eyes involuntarily went towards his left, a bullet coming towards him at a quick speed.


It took him a moment to realise that the bullet was already in his domain, moving at such speed.


'Sniper.'


Only a modified gun or a sniper rifle, multiple times the speed of sound, could move at such a speed after entering his domain.


The bullet was heading towards his head, and currently, Shigure was mid-air.


Even if he wasn't mid-air, he wouldn't have been able to dodge it.


Like a truck you never saw coming.


Impossible to dodge.


Shigure, whose left leg was still on the other side of the railing, mid-air, twisted it, such that it touched the railing contrary to his initial intention.


He pushed off the railing and twisted his entire body.


The bullet missed his head, however, it hit him in the left arm.


Shigure frowned. With his other hand, he took out his trusty staff and lunged it at the railing he had just jumped off.


He caught the edge, barely hanging on.


Next, he quickly kicked off from the building and reached the terrace, diving in.


Next instant, multiple normal bullets were fired at his previous position.


'Slow Down.' He changed his domain, enclosing only that part of his arm.


He crawled—slow, low, toward the far railing.


'This is troublesome. I have lost my ability to think quickly in the battle as my quirk would be active to stop this from bleeding.'


In Shigure's domain, only one effect could be active at once.


Currently, it was 'Slow Down', so he can't use 'Speed Up'.


He glanced towards his right at the white smoke present.


The previous grenade wasn't an explosive, but rather a smoke bomb.


'Should I use that as a cover? Nah, that is an obvious bait. They must have planned it from the start. Prolly have a thermal vision or something.'


To test his theory, Shigure took out a pen from his bag and threw it up.


Nothing.


He then took out a pen from his pocket—the one with his body warmth and threw it up, followed by lifting his upper body slightly up, such that it would seem like he was getting up.


BANG


The pen disappeared from Shigure's vision.


Shigure's eyes grew colder.


'I cannot even camp here. They can throw another grenade, this time a real thing.' He continued crawling towards the other railing.


Shigure cannot use his trump card—the ability to be given more time to think.


It was his main ability when he fought against people with unknown quirks or situations like this, where he needed a quick solution.


He grinned. 'Now it's a game.'


The domain around him expands, reverting to how it was when he stopped the explosion, but this time, there was one change— the wounded arm was also in the domain.


'I need initiative...' Shigure closed his eyes.


CLINK


He quickly jumped off the floor and moved towards where he heard the sound.


Due to the smoke, he only saw the object when he neared it.


A green grenade mid-air, different from the previous one.


The grenade came near him, slowing down.


Shigure, with his remaining arm, swung his staff.


CLANK


Metal met metal.


Like a baseball, the grenade flew back to where it came from.


BOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM


Shigure grinned. He used the bought time to jump off the building and land safely with his parkour skills—shifting between two adjacent buildings while descending.


He quickly sprinted towards the building where he had thrown the grenade.


Midway, he saw a lady coming from the alley, a gun in her hand.


BANG BANG BANG


Shigure didn't even bother stopping. All the bullets slowed down when they came near him.


Slowed down enough for him to deflect them with his staff while running.


"You would need a rifle to do something to me."


"I wonder about that." The lady—Tsuki, sprinted away in a different direction.


"Stop running and die." Shigure ran after her.


---


Aizawa fought with a person covered in maroon armour.


His hand suddenly morphed into a drill, aiming for Aizawa's head.


Aizawa's eyes turned red, the drill turning back to a fist, a fist which Aizawa deflected.


Aizawa kicked at the covered groin, the latter using his thigh on instinct to block.


However, this led to losing his balance and created an opportunity— which Aizawa didn't miss, kicking at the back of the right knee.


THUMP


The armoured man fell on the ground, his hands in front of his face, shielding himself from the following stomps by Eraserhead.


'How troublesome. His quirk, passively, gives him an armour, similar to how mutants are. I cannot disable that. I could only disable the part where he actively changes his armour. I need to find a way to restrain him.'


Aizawa jumped back as he dodged the kick—a kick which created a crater in the nearby wall.


"Are all heroes this weak?" The armoured man—Kenji taunted.


"You'd better have money with you. The government don't treat the criminals well who can't pay for the property damage they cause."


With that, both of them started fighting again.


---


WHOOSH


WHOOSH


Multiple red feathers could be seen moving towards a yellow-haired person. However, mid-way, they were interrupted by a yellow hue, as if stopped by an unknown force.


"I wasn't expecting one of the international criminals to be intertwined with a local gang," Hawks commented, sending more feathers.


"I wasn't expecting one of the rising stars to come after this gang. Guess, my vacation was wasted." The man shook his head, stopping the incoming feathers.


He was Bob, one of the high-level criminals from the Freedom Nation.


His quirk is telekinesis, which is quite versatile.


"Indeed. This would be the place where you would get captured." Hawks said, rushing at him.


Both were at a stalemate. But not for long, as Hawks was slowly but surely taking advantage.


---


"What do you call a fish with no eyes—"


"KYAAAAH"


Emi was interrupted for the nth time as Sonic fired a concentrated sound cannon at her, causing her to dodge.


Her quirk can influence people with sound, by making them laugh uncontrollably.


Sonic also knew that beforehand and prevented her quirk from being used through his quirk.


It had turned into a battle of attrition.


The winner will be decided whether Sonic runs out of steam first or whether Ms Joke gets hit first.


---


"Young people these days have no respect for the elderly." Roshi shook his head, sidestepping Ingenium with practised ease.


"I don't think you would be considered a senior citizen," Ingenium said, punching the middle-aged man.


"That doesn't change anything." Roshi took a step towards Ingenium, getting in the latter's guard.


Not only did he dodge the punch, but he also slightly pushed back Ingenium. The sudden contact instinctively made Ingenium activate his quirk, however, that was what Roshi wanted.


Due to being unbalanced, Ingenium crashed into the wall, followed by Roshi kicking him in the head.


"How disappointing. And here I thought I would get some excitement in my twilight years." The middle-aged man shook his head.


"Your quirk... It's related to instincts, isn't it?"


"Hohohoho, it seems there is a brain inside that tin can," Roshi smirked.


***


Join my Patreon to support me and get up to 10 advanced chapters:


- DESIRE96


(search it up)


Check out my other works.

 

[Desire]

"Stop running and die." Shigure ran after her.


Tsuki was the only female in the gang and the leader.


At least, that was what Shigure knew.


Her quirk was unknown to him.


While running, she dropped a bomb, intending to stop Shigure.


Even with Slow Down, running into a blast cloud was suicide.


His quirk allowed him to slow down things, not stop everything completely.


"Hmph." Shigure snorted, increasing the size of his domain such that the bomb got engulfed just as it hit the ground.


And the domain surged—straight for Tsuki.


Just as it was going to engulf her, too, something changed.


A white flash flared. He shut his eyes—but too late.


However, it was futile. The damage was already done.


He got blinded by a flashbang.


Light didn't care about quirks.


At least the change won't be perceived by humans even if it is slowed by a thousand times.


He wore a low-quality visor compared to what he usually wears, courtesy of Hawks, leading to Ki's absence.


'She already knew that I would use my quirk and timed the opening of the bomb like that. I grew complacent as the bomb was in my domain, which she took into calculations.' A grin appeared on Shigure's face.


His heart drummed inside his chest.


He was still running, but without vision. This would be the perfect time to attack him.


Shigure could already see a rifle or some strong gun attack him now. So, he prepared himself to dive any second now.


'She has an intellect-related quirk or something similar. I could achieve the same results if I used Speed Up. Hmm, my instincts are warning me to dive right. Yet, my mind is telling me not to dive as there's a high chance that my action would be read.'


Shigure was now at a crossroads.


To dive or not to dive.


Instinct screamed. Logic argued.


Which one to choose?


Shigure had mostly relied on his mind rather than his instincts. So, he was inclined not to dive.


Thoughts clashed at light speed even without Speed Up activated.


Decision made.


He needs to compromise.


A compromise between Instinct and Intelligence.


There could be multiple interpretations in this situation.


He could crouch, maybe do a partial dive or do a feint.


'What should I do?'


Before he could choose, a thought came into his mind.


'Fuck it. Chaos it is.'


---


Tsuki was having a pretty good day today.


Her previous plan of being ready for a hero or police raid has been successful, as according to her predictions, the info leak did bring trouble.


Initially, she wasn't worried, as luckily for her, Bob was present.


Still, she prepped for Murphy's Law—and Murphy delivered. The freaking number 19 hero decided to grace them with his hawkish presence.


So, she decided to attack first.


Her quirk: Thought Acceleration. With that, her thinking speed was made 10 times her normal speed.


Planning and executing went hand in hand, and she set up a pretty good ambush.


The angle, speed and other factors of the rocket allowed it such that they won't know it until they got hit.


She hoped to kill at least one or two pros, especially Eraserhead.


His presence was as troublesome as Birdhead's presence.


However, there was one variable in her plans that she hadn't accounted for in this scenario.


'Heretic Smasher. His quirk seems to slow down things around him. Most of the information about him is on his temperament rather than his quirk.' She thought as she looked at the slowed-down explosion of the rocket.


She had decided to deal with him herself.


So, after all the other pros got occupied by her teammates, she tested him by sending a smoke bomb.


Just as she expected, he jumped off the building.


'It's a bit too easy.' She thought as she pulled the trigger of the sniper rifle.


She bought it from Bob, who had brought the weapons from his home country, where it was easy to get compared to Japan.


The speed of the bullet was close to 3 Mach, or 3 times the speed of sound.


Even if you slow it down by 50 times, the speed would still be 25-30 m/s. A speed that a normal person couldn't dodge at such a short range.


She was expecting two possibilities: either he shows a new aspect of his quirk, or increases the output of his quirk and slows down the bullet.


If the latter happened, approaching him at close range would be a complete checkmate for her.


However, contrary to her expectations, he did neither and got back on the roof before dodging the bullet.


'Impressive, ' she thought before using the thermal scope.


When she shot the pen, she realised that he was testing her.


She decided that with that attitude, attacking would be a good time, so she threw an actual grenade.


They were around empty corporate buildings. No civilians.


Tsuki didn't want needless deaths.


She readied her thermal scope, and just as she was pulling the trigger, she noticed her opponent taking a strike position.


'Why?' Her eyes widened, and she immediately jumped off the building, using the rope present as support to go down.


'Troublesome' After reaching the ground, she noticed Smasher rushing towards her.


She retrieved normal pistols from her pocket, trying to slow him down.


BANG BANG BANG.


However, it was futile, so she decided to run.


She dropped a flashbomb, planning to end everything with the next blow.


She reached the end of the building and quickly took out the weapon present, aiming towards Shigure.


Tsuki had beforehand put multiple weapons at all 4 corners of this building.


She hadn't anticipated this situation, but rather, she took extra caution.


The weapon in her hand was a machine gun.


It doesn't matter if he could slow it down. It would be too late with the number and his current blind state.


In the worst-case scenario, it would buy Tsuki a lot of time, which would be enough to end this fight.


"This is the end." Just as she was going to shoot, Shigure twisted his body and... threw his metal stick at her.


'The fuck?' She was confused by the move, and her confusion grew when she calculated the trajectory of the stick.


She pulled the trigger, but realised that Shigure wasn't present at his initial position.


BANG BANG BANG


The bullets were fired at a blank spot.


'How did he?' Her eyes widened as she looked to her right to find Shigure at that spot...with his metal staff.


Tsuki's mind was operating at 10 times speed, so accounting for losing sight of Shigure was a big deal for her.


'I was slowed down.'


"Good night. Sweet nightmares." That was the last thing Tsuki heard before Shigure thrust the metal rod in her mouth.


Her eyes rolling back, the world turning black.


There was silence, only broken by Shigure's rough breathing.


He took out the rod and dropped it to the ground. Then he took out a chocolate bar and quickly devoured it.


"Good grief." 'It was a good decision to use Speed Up first. Otherwise, things would have gotten messy.'


Shigure had thrown the staff—a decoy. Sped up, closed the gap, then slowed her down. Waited. Caught it.


'I made this whole thing on the fly.' Shigure was impressed that he was able to come up with an elaborate plan. The original intention was only to throw the rod, hoping to get Tsuki hit by it.


However, after throwing it, he realised how unrealistic it was and made this plan in pieces.


'I am out of juice.' Shigure thought, pulling out multiple chocolate bars and devouring them.


He normally could get the energy quickly if he cast Speed Up, as things would be digested.


However, glancing at his wounded arm, which has only worsened, he frowned.


'Well, I could give at least moral support to others. Plus, just one instance of Slow Down might be enough to end the battle for others.'


After eating his fill, he decided to move.


He held his stick again and first cleaned it off on Tsuki's clothes, as it was laced in her saliva.


'What if she runs away? Isn't she the leader?' He looked at the unconscious girl.


"Let's first get rid of the weapons." He searched her body, and what he found dumbfounded him.


2 more pistols and freaking 9 knives.


"Wow, guess you learn new things every day." Today, Shigure learned about various places to hide knives while doing physical activity.


After doing this, Shigure pondered how to restrain her exactly. He didn't have a proper capture weapon and wasn't confident in his rope-tying skills.


'Would breaking her legs prevent her from escaping?'


***


Join my Patreon to support me and get up to 10 advanced chapters:


- DESIRE96


(search it up)


Check out my other works.

 

[Desire]

Bob strained to block the feathers. But even he had blind spots in what he could perceive with his telekinesis.


To stop a feather, he needs to first be aware of its location and with so many feathers attacking him from so many directions, multiple of them were able to pass through his defences.


The cuts said enough.


"I will take pleasure in plucking all your feathers soon," Bob cursed, stopping another wave of feathers.


What enraged him—he couldn't wipe them out at once. Why? Coz he wasn't given time. When one wave stops, another immediately attacks him, not giving him enough time.


Every strike—timed, seamless.


"Hmm, I would love to witness that, but unfortunately, the battle is already over." Hawks shook his head in disappointment.


Bob frowned. 'He's bluffing. I can still stall—at least a few minutes.' The answer came to him as he turned back and saw a boy standing around 30 metres away.


'He must have snuck this close due to that bird.' Bob focused on using telekinesis on Shigure. However, before he could know anything, he found the feathers accelerated multiple times. And before he knew it, the world blacked out.


"How will you restrain him?" Shigure asked Keigo.


"I will keep some feathers on him to restrain him, though it won't matter much."


"Send some feathers in that direction. I defeated Tsuki and tied her with a rope." Shigure pointed his thumb.


"Ok. Did you meet the others?"


"I saw Aizawa, though he was stalling for time. I realised I would be useless in that battle, so I didn't assist him."


"Fine. Go on and check on the other two." With that, Hawks headed towards Aizawa's location.


Shigure also started moving towards Ingenium.


Why didn't he help Emi first? He could hear her laughter and was pretty sure that she could hold on for a bit.


'My decision not to break her legs was correct. It would have been troublesome to hear that bird brain's lecture.' One of the reasons Shigure didn't break her leg was due to Tsuki being unconscious.


It would have been a different story if she were conscious.


He soon came on the scene of an old man stepping on Ingenium.


"Am I interrupting something?" Shigure said out loud, amused.


Roshi glanced at Shigure. All of the hair on his back stood up.


Danger.


His instincts warned him that if he let the second tin head near him, it would lead to his capture.


So, he ran away.


"The old man is running away after assaulting a pro hero. Capture him." Shigure shouted and ran after him.


Ingenium's lips twitched under his visor.


He was speechless at both Shigure and Roshi's behaviour.


How is he thinking about outrunning him when his quirk gives him an engine?


Roshi tried to use his instincts and was successful in not getting caught by Ingenium. However, due to the latter's presence, he was considerably slowed down and soon got inside Shigure's domain, followed by getting restrained.


"I avenged you." Shigure made a praying motion while looking up.


"Who did you avenge? I am right in front of you." Ingenium was baffled by Shigure's behaviour.


His mechanical voice just made the situation even more bizarre.


"I guess I will meet him in hell." The old man said, looking up in the sky, as if looking at the victim whom he had assaulted.


Ingenium's confusion only increased.


---


By the time Hawks reached to assist Aizawa, Kenji had already been restrained.


Emi captured Sonic.


Multiple people came to take away the gang.


"Well, I should be going now, I guess," Shigure said, not wanting to wait for the police to arrive.


Even though he knew that he was with Hawks, and viligantes and heroes collaborating is not that uncommon, he didn't want to take the risk.


"Wait a minute." Just as Shigure was going to leave, Aizawa stopped him.


He approached—each step deliberate.


Step Step


Shigure's heart beat quickly.


'Did he notice something different? What would he do? Is my identity compromised?' Anticipation rose in his mind. He readied himself for the worst-case scenario.


Aizawa stopped in front of him. He lifted his hand and pointed.


"Your arm... something is weird."


Shigure entirely paused for a split second. Aizawa took it as confirmation—and pulled up the sleeve.


Shigure had changed his upper clothing before he came here and had bandaged the wound for now.


Aizawa frowned as he looked at the obvious bullet wound, amateurishly bandaged.


"When did you get injured? Was it Tsuki?" Keigo appeared beside him in the next instant, inspecting the wound.


"Yeah. Had to take it in return for dodging a fatal wound." Shigure tried to appear nonchalant, not wanting to escalate the situation.


"The wound is also not properly bandaged. If not for your quirk, you'd be bleeding out." Hawks frowned, tapping slightly on the wound, gauging Shigure's reaction.


'Is he under anaesthesia? How can he not even show a twitch?' Keigo was internally shocked that Shigure's face didn't even show any change in expression.


One should not forget that Shigure had a 12-year-old body with him. And even if one ignores that fact, it was ridiculous.


"Ahem." Keigo turned his head towards Aizawa. The latter's gaze made Keigo straighten up.


Aizawa's eyes spoke volumes. He warned Keigo about the subtle probing he had just done.


Keigo immediately changed his priorities. "I will get him treated. I hope you guys will take care of the cleanup." Before anyone could protest, Hawks flapped his wings and disappeared along with Shigure.


'Why do I get a feeling that he is a kid?' Aizawa furrowed his brows, unable to ignore that feeling.


---


"Kid, tell me your reasoning behind hiding that wound?" Knowing that Shigure was an intellectual individual, arguably more intelligent than him, so, Hawks didn't berate him.


"It would have been too troublesome if they insisted on getting me treated there only. I wasn't expecting you can ditch them for the cleanup, that's why I was going to tell you later about this to get it treated.


With my quirk, I could stop the consequences for a long time. Though I was expecting Eraserhead to notice."


"Me neither. You even fooled my eyes."


"I don't think that's a big achievement," Shigure smirked.


"It is. Believe it or not."


"Narcissistic."


"I call it facts."


---


Date- 31st August


"It's been a while. How have you been?" Keigo asked, taking a sip of his latte.


"I am fine. What about you?" Shigure scooped the ice cream, slow and steady.


"So and so. Do you know how painful it was to clean up those gang we subdued due to the unnatural nature of this operation and Bob's presence?"


They were sitting in Keigo's favourite maid cafe.


Shigure raised his eyebrow. "How much pain?"


"Well, first, I needed to contact my assistant. Then that guy had to make sure that the police and the association were properly informed of the mission, excluding your involvement officially. Anyway, after that He had to..." Hawks started rambling, Shigure nodding occasionally.


"So really, your assistant did everything, and you nodded." After Hawks was done, Shigure asked.


"...Anyway, you haven't updated your quirk registry, have you? You probably have a tier 3 or 2 quirk, no?" Hawks changed the subject naturally.


"Yeah. I would do it before enrolling in the high school... or maybe before the provisional exam, dunno. It's tier 3 currently."


"Double awakening? That's pretty rare." Keigo furrowed his brows, contemplating.


"I guess..." Only Shigure knew how much time it took to do the second awakening. He is also nervous about how long it would take to reach tier 2. It's ridiculous that it took a century to get his quirk from Tier 4 to Tier 3. Though it does make sense, given that his quirk itself is ridiculous.


Law of equivalent exchange.


"Anyway, that shouldn't be the only reason you called me, did you?"


"To point as always. I am going to an international heroes conference in Mexico. Do you want to tag along?"


Shigure stopped sipping. "Interesting. Why me?"


"No particular reason. Most of my "friends" are busy, and my subordinates would be in charge of my agency." Hawks shrugged.


"So, you don't have any friends and thought why not ask me?" Hawks choked on his drink.


"That's... not true."


"Well, I haven't left Japan before this. Should be fun." Shigure agreed.


"Perfect. We would be leaving on 4th September. It would..." Hawks started giving him the details about the trip.


'A foreign vacation. What could possibly go wrong?'


***


Join my Patreon to support me and get up to 10 advanced chapters:


- DESIRE96


(search it up)


Check out my other works.

 

[Desire]

4th September, 22:19


Shigure stood at the airport with a trolley and a bag on his shoulders.


His thumb idly scrolled his phone.


'The MC… weirdly compelling.'


"What are you reading?" Shigure looked up and saw Hawks in his informal outfit and luggage similar to his own.


"A web novel." He briefly replied.


"Which one?" Shigure always hated this part.


'Still don't know why it bothers me so much.'


"Infin*te Mage."


"Hmm." Hawks hummed, moving in a particular direction. Shigure followed him.


"Is it worth reading?" "Depends."


They walked in silence before Hawks asked another question. "Doesn't reading novels... feel boring? I feel hesitant just reading a manga."


'Oh...so we are going to have that conversation.' Shigure, for some reason, felt deja vu.


At some point, he was in the same position as Hawks is today.


"Reading novels is not a choice, but an inevitability."


Hawks tilted his head. "Huh?"


"When you reach my level, you will feel like most of the new anime releases are boring. Initially, people read manga because they want to see what happens in the story when they can't wait a few years for the next season of anime to come out."


Hawks nodded at that.


"And the same things repeat with manga. When you are caught up, the only thing you can do to know what happens next is to read the novel."


"I guess."


"Doing that for a while, you would realise an inevitable truth. The quantity of novels is higher than the other two. Same for manga when compared to anime. Not all good stories get an adaptation. In fact, very few stories get adapted. This brings me the point that you have a lot of options in lower levels, which brings me to an—"


"I get it. I get it." Hawks stopped Shigure from yapping any further.


"Cool. Many people are ignorant about it. So, you can stand proud, for you are knowledgeable now."


Keigo's lips twitched. "We might need to proudly run now."


"Wdym?"


"Huh?" Keigo blinked.


"I meant, what do you mean?"


"Why are you talking in abbreviations?" Keigo asked, baffled.


"Ahem. You ignited my keyboard warrior instincts with that discussion. It seems to be a side-effect as I tend to speak unnecessarily long, which might be—"


"I get it. I get it. Just turn off your instincts. It's getting annoying. Also, look around."


Shigure glanced up—phones pointed, eyes locked on them. Some were also approaching them.


He instantly realised why.


Fans.


"Nigeru," he muttered, bolting alongside Keigo.


However, they were not the only ones who ran.


"He must be Hawks. Oh my god, he looks so hot in his casual wear."


"Who is the kid beside him? Maybe a relative?"


"I must get his autograph. He will soon be in the top 5, if not number 1. It's going to sell so well."


The fans started chasing the duo, seeing their running as confirmation that they were chasing the right person.


"Your fans are so rabid. Also, why are most of them ladies?" Shigure cursed. Multiple fans were blocking the gate in front.


"Haha. Jealous?" Keigo teased.


"Nah. All teenagers. Except that hot onee-san in the back." Shigure honestly answered.


"...Right." Wings came out from openings present in his jacket. He flapped his wings and in the next instant, he left the ground.


Shigure and the luggage also found themselves in the air with the help of feathers.


Seconds later, the mob flooded the spot they'd just left.


"Ahem."


Multiple shouts could be heard, silenced after Keigo cleared his throat.


"Guys, my heart melts seeing your unwavering support, even in an unexpected place."


Shigure snorted. In the next instant, he found himself under glares from below.


Hawks ignored that and continued. "As much as I want to interact with you, unfortunately, I have a flight to take. So, I would have to leave." He started waving his hand.


A lot of boos could be heard from the crowd.


"Are you leaving Japan? Did you get poached by some other country?"


"Please give me your autograph."


"Please have my babies."


Hawks paused, seeing the person who said that from the corner of his eyes, before flapping his wings and disappearing.


---


Shigure slumped into the leather-lined cabin seat.


"Woah, which plane are we taking? I didn't know private cabins were this luxurious, even if we are on an international flight."


"Private jet."


"..." Shigure froze completely.


"I didn't know that you earn that much. I could expect this from All Might or Endeavour, but this is a bit too ridiculous for you, who has been a hero for a few months only." He said a few moments later.


Keigo smirked, tired. "It's not mine. Just a person I saved once. He gave me a free pass as a gift, which I can use to travel."


"I want to become a hero," Shigure muttered, deadpan. 'Preferably one that saves billionaires.'


Keigo deadpanned. "What a burning motivation."


"Anyway. So, Hawks—"


"Keigo." Keigo interrupted him.


Shigure blinked. Twice.


"Right. So, Keigo... I forgot what I was going to say."


"Must not have been important." Keigo shrugged. "Speaking about money, shouldn't you be rich? You created that efficient training method a few years back. Right?"


Shigure's grin flickered into place. "Technically, I would have been if I had cooperated with a big corporation or something. But I sold it to the association directly. So, the money I made is quite meagre compared to what I could have."


"But, why did you do that?" Hawks tilted his head.


"I wasn't stable at that time and didn't trust myself to do some proper negotiations with any company at that time." Something unreadable crossed his face—gone in a blink.


"Anyway, another reason was that I wanted to earn some brownie points with the association for the future and public image in general for what I will do later."


Keigo nodded. "Also, you said your next project was related to architecture or something. Why isn't it mentioned in your fundraising for it?" He took out his phone and showed the webpage.


The only description written was that it was money for his next project.


No details on the project. No deadline. No expected time. As if he didn't care if you donated money or not.


The total money accumulated was at the top of the page.


939 Million Yen.


Below that, the top contributors to the page could be seen.


1. Yaoyorozu Corporations: 669 Million


2. Nezu: 200 Million


3...


"Intentional. Only the top bidders get the product."


Keigo scratched his chin, eyes narrowing. "That does make sense, though quite an unorthodox method. But, aren't you worried that I would tell that to the association, and they are also gonna participate in this?"


Shigure paused. He looked at Keigo in surprise. He let out a quiet laugh.


"That might be the funniest thing you've said all night."


Keigo raised a brow. "Seriously?"


"Hmm. There are 3 reasons for that." Shigure held out three of his fingers.


"Oh?"


"The first one is that it's unlikely that you are gonna do that. Let's say my instincts are acting up."


Hawks frowned, but didn't say anything. 'From what I have observed, he shouldn't be the kind of guy who relies on his instinct. Has he analysed me this much or does he know something that I don't?' His mind went into overdrive.


'Then again. Knowing him, he might have said that to mess with me.' Keigo stopped thinking when he saw a smirk on Shigure's face.


"The second reason is that even if you said to them, they won't spend that much money. Why? Well, the answer is simple." Shigure took Keigo's phone and scrolled down a bit before giving the phone back to Hawks.


Association- 2 Million Yen.


Keigo cringed as the pathetic figure lit up the screen.


'I am pretty sure they have earned at least a thousand times from Shigure's invention. Yet, they dared to donate this much. May as well, hadn't donated.'


He didn't need to guess why. Multiple groups present in association, wanting their piece of the pie.


"Third reason." Hawks looked at Shigure's grin. "I have a feeling that even if the Association decides to compete seriously, the other two would also compete, and the top 2 won't change. The only one profiting would be me."


"Wait, really?" Hawks asked, surprised. What Shigure was saying was not a light statement.


"Yup. Initially, those two had competed, though soon, Principal Nezu decided to exit that battle." Shigure said in a sad tone.


If they had competed longer, Shigure would be richer than he is today.


"I see." 'It seems the situation is not as simple as I thought.'


Shigure's eyes lit up, a grin blooming. "I just remembered what I was going to say earlier. Do you remember what one of your fans said when we were leaving?"


Suddenly, Hawks had a bad feeling.


Shigure pitched his voice high, mocking, "I want your babies.".


A tickmark appeared on Keigo's forehead.


"Did you see her? She was a freaking lady in 50s— a granny. Hahaha. I wonder if she's gone through menopause or not....pfft." Shigure uncontrollably laughed.


Every time he imagined Keigo and the lady together... It was too funny.


Keigo's temple pulsed. Again.


Before Shigure knew it, he got bonked.


"Ow—hey!"


***


Join my Patreon to support me and get up to 10 advanced chapters:


- DESIRE96


(search it up)


Check out my other works.