The morning sun in Naha was a relentless, humid weight, filtering through the slats of the hotel blinds in jagged bars of gold. Koichi Haimawari, known in the Western hero registries as The Crawler, bolted upright on the sofa, his heart hammering against his ribs. The cold towel that had been draped over his forehead slid down his face and landed in his lap with a damp splat.
Memories of the previous night rushed back with the force of a high-speed collision. The kid. The shockwave. The absolute, clinical ease with which he had been neutralized.
Koichi rubbed his chest, feeling the residual ache where the air had been punched out of him. He was a seasoned hero, a man who had survived the chaotic streets of Naruhata and the high-stakes missions of America, yet a teenager with black eyes had folded him like a lawn chair.
He scrambled for his phone, which he had left propped up on the coffee table, set to record as a desperate security measure before he'd been knocked out. He scrubbed through the footage until he reached the end. There was no grand villainous monologue. No looting of his gear.
Just the boy, looking down at his unconscious form with a flicker of something that wasn't quite pity, muttering, "That's my good deed of the day," before clicking the bedroom door shut.
Koichi let out a short, disbelief-filled chuckle. "A good deed? Getting shoved onto a couch?"
The bedroom door clicked open. Yoshi Abara walked out, looking as though he'd stepped out of a freezer, cool, untouched by the tropical heat, and entirely unimpressed. He stopped, seeing Koichi awake, and arched a pale eyebrow.
"You're still here?" Yoshi's voice was a dry, sarcastic rasp.
"It's my room!" Koichi squawked, though he instinctively scooted back an inch on the cushions. "I paid for the mini-fridge and everything!"
Yoshi merely nodded, his eyes scanning the room with a tactical speed that made Koichi's skin crawl. "I'm going out anyway. Don't touch my stuff."
"Where are you going?" Koichi asked, trying to reclaim some semblance of authority.
"None of your business," Yoshi replied, pulling on a light jacket. "Go do your hero work. Or whatever it is sidekicks do when they aren't getting knocked out by children."
He walked out, the door clicking shut with a finality that left Koichi staring at the wood. Koichi sighed, reaching for his encrypted burner phone. He had originally been tapped to move toward the mainland, to provide high-mobility support at in Musutafu and the surroundings of UA following the first two breaches. But the screen glowed with a new, urgent directive from the IHA (International Hero Act) command:
SITUATION VOLATILE. UA IN TOTAL LOCKDOWN. MAINLAND ENTRIES RESTRICTED FOR FOREIGN ASSETS. STANDBY IN NAHA. AWAIT FURTHER ORDERS.
"Great," Koichi muttered. "Stuck in paradise while the world burns."
But he couldn't let it go. That kid wasn't just a "troubled teen." He was an anomaly walking in human skin. Yoichi wanted to follow him.
He didn't use the door. He checked the hallway, empty, then slid out the window of the fourth-story room. Activating Slide and Glide, Koichi adhered to the vertical concrete of the hotel exterior. He moved with a predatory, silent grace, a skill honed by a year of transitioning into deep-stealth work for his American lead. He was a shadow on the wall, a blur of teal and grey following the white-haired boy through the winding alleys of Naha.
He watched the teen for an hour. The kid didn't go to a villain hideout. He didn't meet with a contact. He just... walked. He looked at the ocean. He looked at the tourists. It wasn't odd behaviour but it wasn't completely natural either.
Then, the kid stopped near a small park. A young girl had let go of a bright red balloon, and it was bobbing rapidly toward the power lines, the child's face already crumpling into a sob. The boy didn't even look like he was trying. He reached out a hand, and for a fraction of a second, the air between him and the balloon seemed to shimmer. The distance vanished, and the string was suddenly, impossibly, back in his palm. He handed it to the girl without a word and kept walking.
He really does have a heart, Koichi thought, crouching on the edge of a rooftop.
Koichi shifted his weight to follow, but as he turned his head, the teen was gone. He blinked, scanning the street below. Empty.
"You're still trying to figure me out?"
The voice came from directly behind him. Koichi yelped, losing his grip on the roof tiles and nearly sliding off the edge. He scrambled back, his hands glowing with a faint violet light, to find the boy standing vertically on the side of a water tower, his feet planted firmly against the metal as if gravity were merely a suggestion he had chosen to ignore.
"You're not bad at the stealth thing," he said, his voice flat. "I noticed you three blocks back. You're persistent."
Koichi straightened his hood, coughing to hide his embarrassment. "I've been working on my transition to stealth missions for a year now, kid! I should be better than 'not bad'!" He took a breath, trying to be the adult in the room. "Look, we never got introduced properly. I'm Koichi Haimawari. My hero name is The Crawler."
He stretched out a hand, hovering over the gap between the roof and the tower. Yoshi stared at the hand for a long time, his obsidian eyes unreadable. Finally, he reached out, his grip cold and firm.
"Yoshi," the boy said. "Yoshi Abara."
Before Koichi could ask the hundred questions burning in his mind, a sharp, pained moan drifted up from the alley below. They both looked down. An elderly woman had tripped over a jagged piece of upheaved pavement, her groceries scattered like shrapnel across the stones.
Koichi didn't think twice. He vaulted off the roof, using his quirk to cushion the landing into a soft, sliding stop. "Ma'am! Are you alright?"
Yoshi dropped down a second later, landing with a silent, heavy impact that didn't even disturb the dust.
"Oh, bless you, young men," the woman wheezed, clutching her ankle. Her face was a map of deep wrinkles, her eyes clouded but kind. "I'm just an old fool in a hurry. I have to get to my appointment. I can't be late for the doctor."
"We can get you to a hospital," Koichi said, reaching for his phone.
"No, no," the woman insisted, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Not the hospital they can't give me what I need. The special doctor. He doesn't like the crowds. He's the only one who can help with my... condition."
Koichi saw Yoshi's posture change instantly. The boy's apathetic slouch vanished, replaced by a sharp, predatory interest. Yoshi stepped forward, his tone shifting into something surprisingly pleasant, almost charming, in a terrifyingly controlled way.
"A special doctor?" Yoshi asked, his eyes locked on the woman. "In a place like this? That sounds much better than a crowded clinic. We'd be happy to walk you there, wouldn't we, Crawler?"
Koichi blinked, looking at the sudden "kindness" in Yoshi's eyes. He didn't trust it for a second, but he couldn't leave an injured woman in the street. "Yeah. Of course. We've got you."
The woman beamed, leaning heavily on Koichi's arm while Yoshi took her bags. And she lead them to a direction.
___
The clinic was a squat, windowless block of concrete that looked more like a fortified bunker than a place of healing. The salt air had gnawed at the edges of the structure, leaving streaks of rust that looked like dried blood against the grey walls. A heavy steel door stood at the front, guarded by a man whose frame was so packed with artificial-looking muscle that he seemed to struggle with the simple act of breathing.
As the trio approached, the man stepped forward, his shadow stretching across the pavement to meet them. "What do you want?" he rumbled, his voice like gravel grinding in a mixer.
Mrs. Kagawa, leaning heavily on Koichi's arm, spoke in a trembling voice. "I'm Mrs. Kagawa. I was told to come here for my treatment. I brought the money we agreed upon." She reached into her bag, showing a glimpse of a thick, weathered envelope.
The guard's eyes didn't soften. Instead, his brow furrowed in a sudden, sharp anger. "You were told to come on your own, old lady. We don't do audiences. You bring strangers to our door, you put everyone inside at risk."
"Hey, take it easy," Koichi stepped between them, his posture stiffening. "Don't scream at her. She fell in the street and we helped her get here because she was struggling. What kind of 'clinic' is this, anyway?" He looked around at the lack of windows or signage. "I think I have a right to know what's going on."
Koichi reached for his back pocket, his fingers grazing the leather of his hero license, but before he could pull it out, Yoshi's hand clamped onto his wrist. Yoshi's grip was like iron, not violent, but absolute. He pulled Koichi back a step, a practiced, blank smile appearing on his face.
"I'm sorry," Yoshi said to the guard, his voice smooth and entirely devoid of the sarcasm he usually aimed at Koichi. "My friend is just a bit over-zealous. We'll leave her to it and get out of your hair."
The guard grunted, though he didn't lower his guard.
"Just one thing," Yoshi added, his tone curious. "How much would a typical check-up be here? Just in case we need to come back."
The guard let out a harsh, dry sound that might have been a laugh. "Five hundred thousand yen. And we don't do 'check-ups.' You seek the Doctor when you have a problem you want solved and no one else will listen. Don't come back without a reference next time."
The heavy door opened just wide enough for the woman to slip inside before slamming shut with a mechanical finality.
They walked a block away in silence before Koichi turned on Yoshi, his face flushed with frustration. "Why did you do that? I was about to show him my credentials. That was clearly an unsanctioned operation, Yoshi. You got in the way of my work."
"It was an underground workshop," Yoshi said flatly. "Obviously."
"Exactly!" Koichi threw his hands up. "That's even more reason for me to shut it down. If they don't have a license, they aren't qualified to be treating people. It's dangerous."
Yoshi stopped walking and looked at him, his eyes cold. "They might not have a license, Hero, but that doesn't mean they aren't qualified. You should read a history book."
Yoshi was certainly acting arrogant. Most of the information he had on certain topics like the one he was about to speak about was because of his time inhabiting Izuku Midoriya.
Yoshi leaned against a weathered stone wall, looking out toward the sea. "Sixty years ago, healthcare in this country was supposed to be equal and accessible. But when the hate for mutants reached its peak, the system shifted. It became a luxury. If you didn't have the right look or the right amount of money, you weren't a patient. For the unlucky mutants some were captured and just viewed as study material."
Koichi went quiet, his anger dimming. "I... I know. I wrote a college project on the socio-economics of that era. I know the clinics in the ghettos were the only reason those communities survived."
"Then you should know it hasn't changed as much as you think," Yoshi scowled. "The 'Gold Era' just put a fresh coat of paint on it. You still need money depending on your social status, what kind of job you have, how much you 'contribute.' It's still nearly impossible for mutants or quirkless people to get the kind of high-standing jobs that provide the insurance needed for 'sanctioned' care. Underground doctors aren't criminals to people like her. Although their certainly aren't many left."
They stood there for a long minute, the only sound being the distant crash of the waves and the hum of a passing cicada. Koichi looked at his boots, reflecting on the gap between the laws he was sworn to uphold and the reality of the woman who had just walked into a concrete box because she had no other choice. It was a heavy, stagnant silence that felt as thick as the humidity.
"I was just... annoyed," Koichi admitted softly. "That guy was a dick... you kind of are too."
"And you're a fool," Yoshi said, though the bite was gone from his voice. "For someone in your position, someone with that much power, you shouldn't be so emotional. Moving without thinking will only get you hurt."
Before Koichi could respond, Yoshi reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, matte-black device. Koichi's eyes went wide. He frantically patted his utility belt, realizing one of his pouches was empty.
"My stealth recorder!" Koichi hissed, pointing an accusatory finger. "You stole that from me? When?"
"When I was giving her back her groceries," Yoshi said, ignoring the outburst. "I slipped it into the lining of her jacket. That's why I was so 'kind' enough to insist on walking her to the clinic. I needed to make sure it was inside the building before the shielding kicked in."
Koichi stared at him, caught between a professional's anger and a tactician's respect. "That was... that was smart. But you shouldn't be working behind my back. You should rely on me more."
Yoshi looked at him with a look of genuine disgust, his lip curling. "Rely on you? I'm certain there's something fishy about that doctor, and I'm interested in the truth, not your 'heroic' oversight."
He held the receiver up, the faint sound of muffled, distorted voices beginning to bleed through the speaker.
"Shut up, Hero," Yoshi muttered. "Listen."