Hosu at night had its own glow — warmer, livelier. Among streets illuminated by neon signs and the constant murmur of voices, one of the city's most famous yakiniku restaurants was in full swing. The aroma of grilled meat filled the air, mixed with the sound of laughter, clinking glasses, and the constant sizzle of the grills built into the tables.
The place was lively, almost festive. A perfect refuge to unwind after long days.
In one of the VIP rooms, secluded by wooden partitions and sliding doors, Violet sat at the table with a genuinely happy smile on her face. She brought a freshly grilled piece of beef to her mouth, her eyes closing for a moment as she chewed.
"This is ridiculously good!" she said excitedly, even before swallowing.
Without wasting a second, she picked up another piece, this time pork, and her eyes shone even brighter.
Tony laughed, watching her from across the table.
"Glad you're enjoying it." He crossed his arms, relaxed. "This is one of my favorite spots here in Hosu. I come here whenever I can."
"If things keep going like this…" Violet spoke with her mouth full, completely unashamed, "...I might end up falling in love with this restaurant too."
She looked around, taking in the calmer atmosphere of the private room.
"It's peaceful… so different from back home, from the hero work…" She took another bite. "And this meat… seriously, it feels like God's own handiwork."
Tony gave an awkward laugh, looking away for a second.
"This is already the fifth round… If Violet keeps eating like this... I'll end up leaving here completely broke."
He cleared his throat, changing the subject before Violet could order another portion.
"Ah… speaking of this place," he said casually, "have you heard about the new hero from the rumors? The one they call Fourteen."
Violet tilted her head, confused, as she chewed.
"Hm?" She shook her head no. "I hardly ever see the news from here. It's all in Japanese anyway."
Tony felt the awkwardness of his own question almost instantly.
"Ah… right," he murmured, clearing his throat. "But, in the last three days, Hosu practically went through a massive clean-up. The crime rate, which was pretty high, dropped drastically because of him."
Violet raised an eyebrow, surprised. She swallowed the meat before speaking:
"So this Fourteen must be pretty strong… and competent."
For a brief moment, she caught herself wondering how that hero was doing right now, after entire days of non-stop fighting villains.
Little did she know, the so-called renowned Fourteen was in the VIP room right next to hers, in a very... different atmosphere.
Anan Kurose was sitting in seiza, perfectly at ease, grilling the meat with precision and patience. Without her helmet, her short navy-blue hair framed her serene face, the blond spiral lock standing out under the warm light of the room.
She was savoring every second.
Ryo, on the other hand… was trying to survive.
His chopsticks trembled visibly between his gloved fingers.
Ryo's body was at its limit. After three straight days of nearly non-stop work — facing villains, saving civilians, assisting in evacuations — he had kept Inertia Transition active for an insane average of 8 hours over these three days. Far beyond his usual limit of about 1 hour. Even with quick breaks, the strain had piled up like an impossible debt to ignore.
His muscles ached, his nerves screamed, and small cramps shot through his arms and legs without warning.
He tried to pick up a piece of meat... but it slipped from his chopsticks.
Plop.
Falling back onto the grill.
"…" He looked at the meat before letting out a deep sigh.
"Like this, I won't be able to eat anything…"
His entire body cried out for help. His muscles begged to give in, for him to just collapse onto the tatami mat beneath his knees and sleep right there.
Then, a piece of meat entered his field of vision.
Ryo looked up.
Anan was extending her chopsticks in her gloved hand towards him, a perfectly grilled piece held between them.
"The way you're shaking, you look like a stray puppy on the street," she commented, her tone calm but full of affection. "You won't manage to eat in this state, so let me feed you."
"I-I don't need…" Ryo replied, clearly flustered. "I can eat on my own…"
He tried to prove his point, reaching for another piece of meat on the grill.
A sharp pang shot through his arm.
"Ow!"
Anan watched him with a look that clearly said "I told you so." Without a word, she brought the chopsticks with the meat even closer, keeping the offer steady.
Ryo looked at the meat.
Then at Anan.
She wore a small, playful smile on her face and gave a subtle nod, encouraging him.
Ryo looked at the meat… then at Anan.
Her expression was playful, but her gaze was caring, almost protective. She nodded slightly, urging him on.
He let out another sigh, defeated.
Embarrassed, he opened his mouth and bit the piece of meat directly from her chopsticks, immediately turning his face to the side afterward, his entire face burning with shame and humiliation.
"Just… just this once," he murmured. "Only once."
Anan chuckled softly.
"Tsundere."
"I am not a tsundere!" Ryo shot back instantly, his face even redder, drawing another genuine laugh from the heroine.
Anan tilted her head slightly, observing Ryo's still flushed face.
"You know… you actually look kinda cute when you're all flustered like that," she remarked, a playful smile on her face.
Ryo's eyes widened a little.
"Cute?!" he retorted immediately. "Someone like me is far from cute."
Anan couldn't help but laugh.
"Alright, alright," she said, raising her hands in surrender. "But seriously… you've changed a lot."
Ryo blinked, confused, as she continued:
"The first time we met, you had that empty look in your eyes… distant. You avoided talking, avoided contact, as if you were always ready to close yourself off again at any moment." She looked at him with genuine attentiveness. "Now it's different. You talk more, you respond, you push yourself to interact. You're more present. It's as if the world around you has gained more life."
Ryo felt a strange tightness in his chest.
"But that distant look is still there, you know."
"Will you stop messing with me?" asked Ryo, a vein twitching slightly on his forehead.
She just smiled, clearly pleased with the reaction.
Ryo averted his gaze, his voice quieter when he spoke:
"I just… did what you told me that time, at the hospital." His fingers clenched slightly on his knee. "I followed my instinct. And it brought me here."
Anan watched him in silence for a moment.
Then she smiled.
"If that's the case… Then I'm proud of you."
Her smile was gentle, sincere, without a trace of irony. Ryo felt something strange spread through his chest, a warm sensation he couldn't name.
Before he could respond, a strong smell caught Anan's attention.
"Ah—!"
She quickly turned to the grill.
"Oh, no! The meat!"
With slightly flustered movements, she began removing the pieces that were overdone, muttering to herself as she tried to salvage what she could.
"I get distracted for two minutes and that's it…" she murmured, clearly frustrated.
Ryo silently watched the scene.
Anan there, trying in vain to salvage charred pieces of meat, complaining under her breath, but never losing her composure… that image made something clench inside him.
"Why…"
He lowered his gaze to the grill.
"Why does she remind me so much… of my mother?"
Ryo wasn't exactly sure what he was feeling.
But Anan brought him almost the same calm he felt as a child, beside his mother. It wasn't just her presence—her gestures, her tone of voice, the way she acted without even realizing.
It was all so similar.
He watched as Anan placed new pieces of meat on the grill, focused, gently blowing on the rising steam. Sensing his gaze, she turned her face and offered him a gentle smile—the simple, sincere kind.
In that instant, the images overlapped.
Anan's smile… was the same as his mother's.
The world seemed to glitch for a second.
"M…Mom…?" slipped from his lips, quiet, almost inaudible.
"Hm?"
Anan blinked, confused.
"What did you say, Ryo?"
But before she could get any answer, the wall behind Anan exploded.
The sound was sharp and deafening. Concrete and wood shattered, flying through the air as if time had slowed. From the wreckage, a grotesque silhouette emerged—a Nomu, with long, thin arms and four eyes, lunging forward with a primitive roar.
Ryo saw everything in slow motion.
The debris spinning in the air.
The gentle smile still on Anan's face, who hadn't even noticed the danger.
The image of his mother flashing through his mind like lightning.
The impact came before the sound.
Ryo's fist buried itself in the creature's abdomen with brutal force.
"DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH HER!"
The shock deformed the Nomu's torso, launching it like a projectile back through the hole it had emerged from, vanishing into the night sky.
Silence lasted a moment before time snapped back to normal.
"W-what…?" Anan spun around, stunned, looking at the hole behind her, then at Ryo. "What just happened…?"
"We were attacked," he replied, already moving.
He crouched, picked up the helmet he'd left on the tatami, and fitted it onto his head with a firm click. He approached the hole in the wall, staring out at the city.
Hosu was starting to burn.
Smoke rose in several spots. Sirens echoed. Distant explosions tore through the evening sky.
"Ryo, wait—!" Anan's voice came from behind him.
He didn't respond.
With a leap, Ryo launched himself from the first floor, landing on a nearby roof and taking off at a sprint, jumping from building to building toward the chaos spreading through the city.
Anan stood motionless for half a second, just staring at the hole in the wall.
Then, she quickly grabbed her helmet, fitting it onto her suit and activating the communicator.
"Central, this is Thirteen! Respond!"
Static.
The VIP room door burst open, Tony and Violet rushing in.
"Thirteen?!" Tony immediately recognized the heroine.
Violet was already beside her, hand lightly touching her arm.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Anan replied firmly, though her eyes behind the helmet were restless. "Something's very wrong…"
The communicator crackled again.
"B-boss—!" the operator's voice trembled, mixed with shouts and impact noises in the background. "The agency is under attack! Strange creatures, huge ones—! We're trying to fight back, but—"
A muffled blast was heard before the signal cut out.
"Hello?! Central!" Anan insisted.
Silence.
Thirteen froze.
She, Violet, and Tony stepped closer to the destroyed opening, looking out at the city.
Fires spread. Explosions dotted the horizon. Shadows moved between buildings. Hosu was plunging into chaos.
"What…" Violet murmured, a chill running down her spine. "What's happening…?"
----------------------------------------
The bullet train cut through the night like a steel blade, its tracks vibrating as it raced through Hosu towards Shinjuku. The city lights blurred past the windows, a disquieting contrast to the silent interior of the carriage.
"Are you sure it's okay for us to do this at night…?" Midoriya asked, shifting in his seat.
Gran Torino, settled to his right, let out a short laugh.
"Best time, kid. At night, those bastards feel more comfortable crawling out of the sewers where they live." He crossed his arms. "Our chances of running into one go way up. It's going to be fun."
"F-fun…?" Midoriya gave an awkward smile. "I'm not sure I'd use that word, but… if you say so…"
He pulled his phone from his pocket, his thumb sliding nervously across the screen. He opened the conversation with Iida. The message was marked as read… but there was no reply.
Midoriya's chest tightened for a moment.
"Maybe he's busy…?"
Trying to push the thought away, he remembered Ryo — Ryo was in Hosu too. Maybe he knew something. Midoriya began to type hurriedly:
"Takeda, can you check on Iida for—"
UGH!
The train braked sharply and Midoriya's face slammed hard into the back of the seat in front of him, his phone almost slipping from his grip. He brought his palm to his nose, feeling the pain flare.
"W-what was that…?"
BOOM!
An explosion rocked the carriage a few seats ahead. Metal tore, glass shattered, passengers screamed as something burst through the side of the train and crashed violently onto the floor.
The dust settled just enough to reveal a Nomu.
The monster writhed on the carriage floor. There was a deep crater sunk into its abdomen — the clear mark of a brutal punch. Crushed organs, pulverized bones… everything was beginning to reassemble with wet, cracking sounds as its regeneration kicked in.
It was the same Nomu that Ryo had flung away moments before.
The passengers erupted into panic the next second.
"A-a Nomu…?!" Midoriya shot up from his seat, eyes wide.
But he didn't even have time to act.
"Stay put, kid."
In the blink of an eye, Gran Torino activated his foot jets, shooting from his seat to the side wall of the train and using it as a launch point. The carriage shook as he launched himself straight at the Nomu.
"Let's go for a little walk."
The impact was violent.
The two tore through the hole in the train's side and vanished into the night, heading toward the chaotic lights of Hosu below.
"GRAN TORINO!" Midoriya ran to the opening, the wind whipping his face.
That was when he truly saw Hosu.
The city below was plunged into chaos—scattered fires burning like open wounds, explosions echoing between buildings, sirens mixed with distant screams. Something huge was happening there, something much bigger than a simple isolated villain attack.
"What… what's going on…?" he murmured, feeling his stomach churn.
And then the name came to mind like a warning.
"Iida."
Midoriya's heart hammered.
"I… I can't stay here."
"HEY! KID!" the conductor shouted behind him. "Get away from there! It's dangerous!"
Midoriya rushed to the edge, looking down.
It was high. Too high.
He swallowed dryly, his legs trembling for a moment.
"Too timid."
Gran Torino's voice echoed in his mind as he remembered the words.
"You think too much. You're too afraid. If you don't take risks, you'll never get anywhere."
Midoriya squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath.
"…Right."
He climbed onto the concrete ledge, feeling the wind batter his uniform. One For All began to course through his body in a controlled flow.
6% across his entire body.
15% concentrated specifically in his legs.
His muscles vibrated, energy building.
"Kid, wait—!" the conductor tried to reach him, starting to climb down through the hole in the carriage.
But it was already too late.
Midoriya launched himself.
The jump was explosive.
The train's ledge cracked under his feet, the concrete crumbling as the boy's body was propelled outward. He twisted in the air in an instinctive flip, the wind roaring in his ears.
"N-NO!" the conductor yelled, running to the edge, pale.
Midoriya fell in free-fall until he touched the side of a building, absorbing the impact with his reinforced legs and continued—running along the wall, leaping to another building, then another, disappearing among the buildings like a green blur.
"…Huh…?"
The conductor stood frozen, staring into the void, completely dumbfounded.
"W-what just happened…?"
Down below, Midoriya charged ahead without hesitation, his heart pounding in his chest.
"Iida… I'm coming!"
He was heading straight into the eye of the storm.
----------------------------------------
The side of the building was torn open, a massive hole exposing twisted beams, shattered concrete, and inner rooms laid bare to the Hosu night. The wind carried dust, smoke, and the metallic scent of blood as the heroes fought with everything they had just to avoid being massacred.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE GUYS?!" screamed Razor Beam, his voice thick with desperation.
The plasma cannon covering his arm roared, firing concentrated bursts of bluish light at a slender-looking Nomu. Its legs were bent unnaturally, and in place of feet were single wheels.
The creature moved like a blur.
The shots grazed past, exploding against walls and the floor, as the Nomu dodged with jerky, unpredictable movements. A hero focused on close-quarters combat tried to intercept it—a fatal mistake.
The Nomu responded with a brutal sequence of strikes, too fast to follow. Before the hero could react, he was grabbed by the uniform and hurled like a projectile, crashing violently into Razor Beam in the opposite corner of the room.
"UGH—!"
Across the battlefield, a second Nomu was advancing… until it stopped.
Its body began to expand.
"IT'S PUFFING UP AGAIN!" someone yelled.
In the next second, the creature had inflated like a pufferfish, its skin stretched to the limit, before releasing an explosion of spines in all directions. The heroes threw themselves backward, scrambling for cover.
Some weren't fast enough; screams of pain echoed as spines pierced arms, legs, and shoulders.
"Wounded over here!" shouted a support heroine, running among the fallen, her hands glowing as she tried to stabilize them with her partial-healing quirk.
And then there was the third one.
A giant over two meters tall, four arms pulsing with dense muscle. Spines embedded in its body, remnants of the puffer Nomu's attack, simply regenerated and fell off, useless. It advanced unhurriedly, overwhelming.
With one motion, it grabbed a hero and slammed him against the wall, cracking the concrete. With another arm, it struck a second hero coming from the side, hurling him away. A third was nearly crushed between its hands, escaping by a hair's breadth as he rolled across the floor.
"We can't go on like this!" cried the support heroine, her voice trembling. "We don't have enough offensive power! And their regeneration is too fast!"
The heroes retreated, grouping together, wounded, exhausted.
"The worst one is definitely the one that looks like a pufferfish…" one of them murmured, panting.
"How are we going to get out of this…?" asked another, his voice heavy with fear.
A third clenched his fists, looking toward the building's destroyed entrance.
"All we can do is hold on… and pray the boss comes back with reinforcements."
The three Nomus began to close in together.
The air felt too heavy to breathe.
Until... a green flash cut through the space like lightning.
In a span of time that was almost non-existent, something passed between the Nomus. There was a dry, grotesque sound of something being torn off.
THUD.
Three heads fell to the floor.
Seconds later, the bodies collapsed. And behind them, standing amidst the rubble and dust, was Ryo.
Smoke rose from his body, greenish sparks crackling around the black jacket with neon lines. The astronaut helmet reflected the motionless scene before him.
"…Are you guys okay? Am I late?" he asked, his voice far too calm for what had just happened.
For a few seconds, no one reacted.
Then, one hero began to laugh—a nervous, relieved chuckle. Another slumped to the floor, letting his body relax completely. Some simply lay down, staring at the shattered ceiling as if they had just miraculously escaped death.
"It's… it's Fourteen…" someone murmured.
"Thank goodness he came…" another said, smiling with tearful eyes.
Razor Beam approached slowly, looking first at the decapitated corpses, then at the boy in front of him.
He felt a deep shiver run down his spine.
A 15-year-old boy had just coldly killed three monsters that had nearly wiped out an entire agency.
He didn't feel good seeing the scene, but even so, he swallowed dryly and extended his hand.
"…Thank you," he said, sincerely. "If you hadn't shown up… we—"
Ryo just gave a slight nod.
"Right, I'll leave the rest to you. I have to go."
Without another word, he left the scene.
He runs through the streets of Hosu, using small jumps to gain momentum until he concentrates energy in his legs and launches himself in a colossal leap, tearing through the air and reaching the sky above the city.
From up there, he sees the chaos spreading beneath his feet.
"Is this another thing from that so-called League of Villains...?"
Then—
"Got you~"
A voice came right behind him. Distorted. Mocking. And far too close.
Ryo twisted his body in the air by instinct; a clawed hand grabbed his helmet, and in the next second, an absurd weight imposed itself on his body. The world spun as they plummeted at high speed.
BOOOOOOM—!
They hit the asphalt with enough violence to blow the street apart, sending up a dense cloud of smoke, concrete, and twisted metal.
"Kh—!" Ryo coughed, the air ripped from his lungs.
A crack ran across his helmet. The shattered visor revealed part of his face, blood trickling from his scalp. He tried to move… but something heavy struck his hips and pinned him back to the ground.
A tall figure was sitting on his torso, the crushing weight of her wide hips pressing him even deeper into the cracked asphalt like a vise. Every attempt to breathe seemed to demand too much strength.
"No, no…" the voice hummed. "You're not going anywhere, little one~"
The dust begins to settle.
And Ryo's eyes widen.
Before him, leaning in to stare at him up close, was Woman.
The smile too wide, sharp teeth gleaming in the gloom. The exposed brain pulsed faintly in the light of the surrounding fires.
She pinned his arms down with her superhuman strength, leaning just enough for him to see her face completely.
"Keep still," she said, in an almost playful tone. "If you struggle too much, you'll hurt yourself more~"
She leans in even closer, observing the blood, the broken helmet, the determined look despite the pain.
"Now…" she continues, chuckling low. "Be a good boy… and come with Mommy~"