Heavy rain poured over the city of Musutafu, covering the streets in a curtain of water. The dark night hung above the city, with thick clouds hiding the sky as the cold wind swept through the streets. Trees swayed violently under the force of the wind, their branches shaking as the rain continued to fall without any sign of stopping.
Tsutsumi stood beneath the open sky, looking up into the darkness.
He had turned off his barriers, allowing the cold rainwater to fall directly onto his face. His hair was soaked, and his clothes clung to his body as the water ran down his cheeks and dripped from his chin. The wind brushed against his skin, carrying a chill that slowly settled into his body.
He didn't bother to move; he simply let the rain fall on him.
The sensation of the cold water against his skin reminded him that he was still, at least in some way, human.
It was a strange thing to think about. After everything he had experienced, after all the power he had accumulated and the countless worlds he had traveled through, something as simple as rain had become a way for him to remind himself of what he was.
Or perhaps, more accurately, what he was supposed to be.
The stronger he became, the less human he felt.
It wasn't simply a matter of physical strength or the number of abilities he possessed. It was the distance that power placed between him and everyone else. The more capable he became of changing the world around him, the harder it was to see himself as an ordinary person living within it.
And the more difficult it became for others to see him that way, too.
This was the price of power.
A price Tsutsumi understood far too well.
He had seen it happen repeatedly across different stories and different worlds. The details changed, the people changed, and the circumstances were never quite the same, but the outcome remained familiar. Anyone who possessed enough power to shake the foundations of a society would eventually be viewed as something beyond an ordinary human being.
It didn't matter how human they looked, how they spoke, or how much they tried to live like everyone else.
Once their strength reached a certain point, people would begin to look at them differently.
They would no longer see a person standing before them. They would see a threat, a weapon, or something that had to be feared and controlled.
Sometimes, it didn't even matter what that person wanted.
The mere possibility of what they could do was enough.
Tsutsumi lowered his gaze slightly, watching the rainwater run down his fingers. His hands looked no different from anyone else's. They were still human hands, capable of holding things, touching others, and performing the same ordinary actions as anyone else.
Yet those same hands had done things that ordinary people could scarcely imagine.
After a while, Tsutsumi let out a deep, exhausted sigh.
There was no point in standing out here forever.
He lowered his head and began making his way back toward U.A. High School, his footsteps carrying him through the rain-soaked streets.
As he walked, a burst of hot flame suddenly erupted from his entire body.
The fire engulfed him for a brief moment, its intense heat drying his soaked hair, clothes, and skin almost instantly. Then, just as quickly as it had appeared, the flames disappeared, leaving no trace of their presence.
The rain continued to fall around him. Only now, the raindrops stopped before reaching his body, halted by the invisible boundary of Infinity.
Tsutsumi continued walking, allowing the ability to keep the rain away from him while the rest of the city remained drenched beneath the storm.
Then Azu's voice reached him through their mental connection.
"Master, how are you feeling?"
She was asking about his state of mind.
Tsutsumi continued walking, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.
"I don't know."
His answer came quietly. He genuinely didn't know how he was supposed to feel.
He knew that Pyrrha, Ren, and Nora were living happily now. That was what he had wanted for them, and seeing them together again had confirmed that they were safe. They could continue their lives without being burdened by the memories of their former world, and they no longer had to carry the pain of everything that had happened there.
They were free to move forward.
That should have been enough to put his mind at ease.
Yet the hollowness in his chest remained.
Knowing that they were happy didn't make the distance between them disappear. It didn't bring back the memories they had lost, nor did it change the fact that, to them, he was now nothing more than a stranger.
He could still remember everything. In comparison, they must not remember any of it.
Tsutsumi had made his choice, and he wasn't going to take it back. He didn't regret allowing them to live peacefully, nor did he wish to burden them with the past simply because he couldn't let go of it himself.
Still, understanding that he had made the right decision didn't mean he had to feel good about it.
With Tsutsumi's control over his Cursed Energy so refined, not even a single drop of it leaked from his body. There was no outward sign of his exhaustion or the emptiness he felt inside. To anyone looking at him, he would appear perfectly calm, with no indication that anything was wrong.
After a while, the coat he was wearing began to shift.
Its material changed shape and color, transforming into a black and magenta hoodie. Tsutsumi reached up and pulled the hood over his head, covering his hair and partially obscuring his face.
Although Infinity was already keeping the rain away, walking through the streets without any visible protection from the weather would undoubtedly draw some questionable looks.
And he really wasn't in the mood to deal with that right now.
Especially considering what he had, for all intents and purposes, committed mass genocide.
That was not something he could simply ignore, no matter how justified he believed his actions had been. The consequences of what he had done were still fresh in his mind, and the last thing he wanted was to attract unnecessary attention from strangers.
He was already sensitive enough to the way people looked at him.
So he kept his head down and continued toward U.A. Eventually, the school's front gate came into view.
Tsutsumi slowed down as he approached, looking at the entrance before reaching into his pocket.
He searched for his Student ID, but he couldn't find it anywhere.
"...Where the hell did I throw that thing?"
He couldn't remember.
At this point, he had no idea where his Student ID had ended up. He might have left it somewhere, dropped it without noticing, or simply destroyed it by accident.
Tsutsumi stared at the gate for another moment.
Normally, he would have needed to show his ID or explain himself to the people responsible for security. Under the current circumstances, however, he had neither the patience nor the desire to deal with that process.
With a quiet sigh, Tsutsumi lowered his gaze toward the ground. Then he stepped into the shadow beneath his feet and disappeared.
For several seconds, the entrance remained quiet, with only the sound of the heavy rain and the wind blowing through the surrounding trees.
Then, suddenly, the gate burst open from the other side.
Hound Dog rushed through it, his movements hurried as he emerged into the rain. His eyes were bloodshot, and he immediately began looking around, scanning the area as though searching for someone who had been standing there only moments ago.
His gaze swept across the entrance, seeing absolutely no one outside.
He had seen an unfamiliar hooded figure standing there just moments earlier. But by the time he had rushed out to investigate, the person had already vanished.
...
Inside one of the rooms in the U.A. Class 1-A dormitory, five students had gathered to spend their free time watching a horror movie together.
Classes had ended some time ago, and with nothing particularly urgent to attend to, Jiro, Bakugo, Todoroki, Melissa, and Yaoyorozu had decided to make use of the evening by watching something on the projector in Tsutsumi's room.
The television screen was the only source of light in the dimly lit room, its changing images casting faint shadows across the walls. Outside, heavy rain continued to fall, pattering against the windows while the cold wind occasionally swept through the surrounding area.
All things considered, it was a rather suitable atmosphere for a horror movie. Unfortunately, the movie itself wasn't proving to be particularly frightening.
The five students sat watching the screen, following the events with varying degrees of interest. There were the usual suspenseful scenes, unsettling sounds, and sudden appearances that were supposed to make the audience jump. However, none of them seemed especially affected.
That wasn't particularly surprising. Most of them were heroes in training, after all. They had already experienced situations where their lives were genuinely in danger, so they had developed a certain degree of mental resistance to things that would normally frighten ordinary people.
Compared to the things they had encountered during their training, a fictional monster suddenly appearing on a television screen wasn't all that terrifying.
They were still enjoying the movie until Melissa noticed something strange.
Her attention had briefly wandered away from the screen when she caught sight of the shadows stretching across the floor. At first, she thought it was simply an unusual effect caused by the changing light from the projector. But then she noticed that something was wrong.
Their shadows weren't moving naturally. The dark patches beneath them had begun to ripple and bubble, almost as though the floor itself had turned into boiling water. The movement was subtle at first, but it quickly became difficult to ignore.
Melissa stared at it for a moment, trying to understand what she was seeing.
"...Uh, guys?"
She nudged Bakugo lightly with her elbow.
"What?" he muttered, keeping his eyes on the screen.
"Look."
Her unusual tone finally drew his attention. The others also turned away from the movie, following Melissa's gaze as she pointed toward the strange movement on the floor.
And just as they looked, a figure suddenly shot out of the shadow.
"Ahhhh!"
An explosion burst from Bakugo's hand, while a wave of ice erupted from Todoroki's side. Both attacks shot across the room almost simultaneously, filling the dimly lit space with a sudden flash of light and a rush of heat and cold.
Melissa practically jumped out of her seat in panic, hurriedly reaching for the light switch.
The room was immediately illuminated. And there, Tsutsumi still half-emerged from the shadow on the floor, was a familiar hooded figure.
For a moment, everyone simply stared at him. Then Jiro finally found her voice.
"What the hell is wrong with you?! Don't scare people like that!"
She quickly pulled her feet back from his face, looking thoroughly annoyed by his sudden appearance.
Tsutsumi, meanwhile, didn't seem particularly bothered by the outburst.
The explosion and ice that had been unleashed moments earlier had already been completely countered and contained by the ClusterCells he had released. The tiny metallic insects had spread out around him, intercepting both attacks before they could cause any damage to the room.
With a small movement of his hand, Tsutsumi began recalling them.
Several ClusterCells flew away from Bakugo's hands, while others detached themselves from Todoroki's ice. They gathered together and returned to their owner, disappearing back into his body.
Only then did Tsutsumi look around the room properly.
"This is my room. Why are you guys here?"
He asked the question with a completely straight face, as though he were the one who had walked in and discovered five strangers occupying his dorm room.
Bakugo's expression immediately twisted.
"You bastard! Are you trying to give us a heart attack?!"
"Your room has a projector," Todoroki replied in his usual calm voice.
Tsutsumi turned his head toward him.
"...I see."
That was apparently the extent of his response.
He then reached up and pulled his hood down, exposing his somewhat longer hair. The strands fell around his face, looking noticeably different from the last time his classmates had seen him.
To everyone else, Tsutsumi had simply disappeared for another week, much like a cat that wandered away from home for several days before casually returning whenever it wanted something to eat.
And, at this point, that wasn't an entirely inaccurate comparison.
His habit of skipping classes and disappearing without warning had become familiar enough that it no longer caused much surprise. Practically everyone in Class 1-A knew about it by now, and even the teachers at U.A. had grown accustomed to his unpredictable schedule.
Somehow, accepting his behavior had become much easier than anyone could have expected.
A large part of that was because of how much Tsutsumi eclipsed his classmates. His abilities were so far beyond what most of them could handle that his occasional absences had gradually become a problem people simply learned to live with.
Besides, he was already enough of a headache for the school staff. Trying to keep track of him was one thing. Actually getting him to follow the rules was another matter entirely.
Before he could say anything else, Jiro leaned closer, her attention shifting toward his hair.
"How did your hair grow so long so fast?"
She reached up and touched it, running her fingers through a few strands. Her fingertips moved along its length, feeling its stiffness and texture as she examined it with a curious expression.
That curiosity didn't last very long.
"Tsk. Did you just use water to clean your hair or something?"
Her expression immediately turned somewhat annoyed.
Tsutsumi glanced at her. "What's wrong with it?"
"What's wrong with it? Have you even looked after yourself?"
Being childhood friends, Jiro knew better than most just how neglectful Tsutsumi could be toward himself whenever he became focused on something.
It was one of his most troublesome habits.
Once he decided to devote himself to a particular task, he could easily put 120% of his effort into it, leaving practically nothing for anything else. He would become so absorbed in whatever he was doing that he could completely forget about his own needs.
Eating, drinking, sleeping, and even basic personal care could all end up being pushed aside.
This wasn't something that had started recently, either. It was a trait that had followed him all the way from childhood.
If the Jiros hadn't noticed that Tsutsumi Kaina hadn't returned home in days, then Tsutsumi Ryoko might genuinely have died from starvation a long time ago.
That was how bad he could get when nobody was around to keep an eye on him.
Losing Pyrrha had only made that tendency worse. After her death, and after beginning his path toward resetting the world of Remnant, Tsutsumi hadn't stopped to eat, drink, or even rest for a single moment. He had simply continued moving forward, using Construction and his Cursed Energy to create food and water directly inside his body to sustain himself, while relying on Reverse Cursed Technique to keep himself awake.
In other words, he had found a way to keep himself functioning without having to take care of himself in the ordinary sense.
It was certainly convenient. It was also exactly the sort of thing that would make Jiro want to grab him by the collar and give him a proper scolding.
Tsutsumi, for his part, didn't seem particularly interested in defending himself. He simply let Jiro examine his hair, looking as though her complaints were something he had heard countless times before.
After a moment, Jiro finally let go.
"Well, since you're here, why not join us?"
Tsutsumi looked toward the television, where the horror movie was still paused on the screen.
"Why not?"
Without much hesitation, he casually flopped down onto the beanbag chair right where she was sitting.
Seemingly not bothered by him taking her seat. She simply settled onto his lap and leaned her back against him, making herself comfortable as though this were the most natural thing in the world.
Tsutsumi didn't react either. He merely leaned back and allowed her to settle into a comfortable position.
Neither of them seemed to think there was anything unusual about it.
The other four, however, couldn't help but raise their eyebrows.
Melissa glanced between the two, while Yaoyorozu looked at them with a slightly surprised expression. Even Todoroki's gaze lingered on them for a moment longer than usual. Bakugo, meanwhile, seemed to have already lost the will to comment.
The way Jiro had casually settled onto his lap, the way Tsutsumi had accepted it without even looking twice, and the complete lack of embarrassment from either of them made their relationship seem a little different from what the others had expected.
They acted as though this kind of closeness was already part of their everyday routine.
Honestly, if someone had told the others that the two were an old married couple rather than childhood friends, they probably wouldn't have found it particularly difficult to believe.
Looking down at Jiro sitting on his lap, a thought came to his mind before he quickly dismissed it.
He could use Idle Transfiguration to grant her the ability to perhaps unlock a Cursed Technique, but since both the power and person are from different worlds, the chances of her actually getting brain damage instead of an Innate Cursed Technique were pretty high.
Tsutsumi wasn't willing to risk ruining his childhood friend's life.
He is willing to gamble his own life and safety, but not the lives of those he cared for.