The sound behind interrupted his thoughts.
'More?' Yuta looked back.
Dressed in similar clothing, but with a black cape and black bowler hat, a man stood from behind, drawing a gun out of his clothing and fired.
The bullet whistled past Yuta's ear, a dull thud as it buried itself into the ceiling. The moment the bullet ripped past his ear, Yuta's body moved.
Shin Nemoto tracked him immediately, pistol angling up, the silencer giving a soft phff! as round after round punched into the roof.
'Who the hell are these guys?'
He pushed off the ceiling, avoiding a strand of white hair extended impossibly long. Landing on the windows, he pivoted again, avoiding the bullets as he shot forward.
The Sharingan spun, predicting angles, tracing trajectories—The gunman was the immediate problem. One stray bullet could hit a civilian, preventing him from landing on the top of the seats.
With his eyes, he easily spotted an opportunity.
Without hesitation, he aimed with the only thing currently on him. His newly bought, two week old phone.
'Damn Villains.'
Thwack.
It slammed into Nemoto's wrist just as he squeezed the trigger. The silenced shot veered downward, burying itself harmlessly into the floor instead of someone's skull.
Yuta didn't give him a second to recover. He pushed off the wall, hurtling toward the gunman as he aimed again. But just as his heel was inches from Nemoto's throat,
The floor rose.
The heavy iron floor of the aisle suddenly surged upward, the metal plates bending and folding like paper to form a jagged, reinforced shield. Yuta's kick slammed into the steel barrier instead of Nemoto's face. The vibration rattling up his leg.
"—What!?"
Yuta was stunned.
'The train is moving on its own?'
Before he could recalibrate, Nemoto—protected by the steel barrier—leveled his suppressed pistol through a gap in the shifting metal.
Phff!
A sharp, searing pain exploded in Yuta's left shoulder.
'Shit.'
He spiraled mid-air, blood spraying against the seats of the cabin as he hit the carpeted floor. He skidded back, his hand immediately clamping over the wound as his fingers turned crimson.
The sound of something cutting through the air behind him fell into his ears.
Yuta ducked.
The hair strand pierced into the arm of a sleeping passenger beside him.
The passenger didn't even flinch, their head lolling to the side as the chemical sedative kept them trapped in a deep, artificial stupor.
Yuta's breath hitched. He looked at the red staining his palm, then at the innocent person who had just been used as a pincushion. 'Uraraka?'
The hair retracted back to its wielder standing at one end of the cabin, while the gunman stood at the other end protected by shifting iron. He was boxed in.
'Talk about man in the middle.'
He stood up slowly in the center of the aisle, legs braced.
A few seconds passed in tense silence, broken only by the rhythmic clatter of the train.
Then, Hari Kurono stepped forward, his golden eyes narrowed in appreciation. "Decisive. Even with a chemical agent in your lungs, your awareness is... remarkable. I watched your performance at the Sports Festival, but seeing it in person is quite different. U.A. truly does produce monsters."
"Fans?" Yuta raised an eyebrow. "I'm flattered. Want an autograph? Because if you do… this level of stalking is a bit much."
The white-haired man's expression didn't change. "Unfortunately, we're not here for pleasantries."
Click.
The sound of a gun hammer cocking.
Behind the iron shield, Nemoto aimed squarely at Yuta's chest.
"Are you the vigilante responsible for the death of Kai Chisaki?"
His words were accompanied by a purple sound wave visible only to Yuta's Sharingan.
'What the ..'
Yuta felt his throat constrict, his vocal cords activating involuntarily. The compulsion to answer crashed over him like a wave, every cell in his body screaming to speak, to confess, to tell the truth—
'Quirk!'
His body control snapped into action.
Muscles locked. Vocal cords went rigid. His diaphragm froze mid-breath. He didn't take any chances and made himself physically incapable of speech.
The silence stretched.
The gunman's eyes narrowed behind his mask. "Answer me."
Nothing. Yuta stood perfectly still, blood dripping from his shoulder, his lips pressed into a thin line.
The compulsion faded after three seconds, releasing its grip on his nervous system.
"How about ... No," he said flatly. Nemoto's eyes widened.
"…He resisted my quirk."
Kurono's eyes sharpened.
"I see. The fact that you can physically prevent yourself from speaking is impressive."
He stepped forward slowly.
"But the delay between the question and your answer…" Kurono studied him like a specimen.
"…that makes your denial meaningless."
Yuta focused his quirk on his shoulder, accelerating his healing. The bullet was pushed out by new mass before the bullet hole healed.
"Kai Chisaki .. you mean Overhaul. ... I know who you are now. You're the Shie Hassaikai."
"I see you've heard of us," he said quietly. "That makes this simpler."
"Does it?" Yuta shifted his weight, testing his healed shoulder. "Because from where I'm standing, you just attacked a UA student on a public train. That's not going to end well for you."
"We're not concerned with consequences," the white-haired man replied. "Only answers."
"Then you're wasting your time," Yuta said. "I don't know anything about your boss."
"Liar."
The accusation came from the gunman—Shin Nemoto, Yuta realized. The one with the Confession quirk. The guy with white hair must be Chrono .. something.
'That explains why the train's moving like it's alive.'
His eyes narrowed. 'There's one who can fuse with objects and control them from within ..'
Kurono's hand was near his hair again, ready to launch more needles. Behind Yuta, Nemoto's gun hadn't wavered. And somewhere, merged with the train itself, was a third quirk user controlling the environment.
'Three minimum. Possibly four if someone's in another car.'
The odds were bad.
Motionless civilians were all around with a high chance of collateral damage.
His eyes flicked to Uraraka, still unconscious in her seat. Then to the other passengers—the elderly woman, the salaryman, the mother and child.
All liabilities.
Kurono seemed to read his thoughts. "You're wondering if you can protect them all," he said quietly. "The answer is no. Not against two of us."
"Try me," Yuta said.
"We'd rather not." The man's golden eyes gleamed. "Surrender. Answer our questions. And we'll let the civilians go unharmed."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then we make you answer." Hari Kurono uttered indifferently.
With the collapse of the Shie Hassaikai and the news of Overhaul's death, Kurono had lost more than a boss. He'd lost purpose. Direction. The structure that had defined his existence for over a decade.
So he'd done what any loyal subordinate would do: he'd gathered the remnants. Five of the Eight Bullets. The Director. Those who hadn't been caught in the initial sweep.
And he'd investigated.
The police reports from Machida told a convenient story: Kai Chisaki, killed by an unknown vigilante. A masked hero who'd vanished into the night, leaving only a traumatized girl and a half-dead teenager as witnesses.
But Kurono knew better than to trust convenient stories.
So he'd sought out Rappa—the only other person present that night. The only one who could confirm or deny the official narrative.
What Rappa had told him shattered the lie completely.
No vigilante. No masked savior. Just a fifteen-year-old UA student who'd refused to die and a boss who'd underestimated him.
The discrepancy between the police report and Rappa's testimony left only two possibilities: either the boy had fabricated the vigilante to cover his tracks, or the vigilante existed but had remained hidden even from Rappa's awareness.
Either way, the boy was involved. Either way, he had answers.
And either way, Kurono intended to extract them.
___
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