The sound of the final power line snapping was not a noise, but a structural death sentence. Ten tons of reinforced concrete and rusted rebar the terminal weight of a failed construction site began its descent toward the group of elders and children huddled in the ruins of Ashita Street.
It was a slow-motion collapse of hope, a physical manifestation of a neighborhood being discarded by a world that only cared about main characters.
But the impact never came.
At the center of the disaster, the soot-covered, suffocating teenager known as Kaito Arisaka had ceased to exist. In his place stood something that defied the three-dimensional laws of the universe.
The transition was instantaneous, a sharp, crystalline 'Click, that reset the rendering of the entire district.
The entity stood perfectly still beneath the shadow of the falling pillar. He was draped in a pristine, high-collared white suit that emitted a soft, internal glow, casting sharp, high-contrast shadows against the burning ruins.
His hair, once a matted mess of ash and black, was now a flowing, shock-white mane that billowed in a wind that didn't exist in the physical world. His hands were encased in immaculate white gloves, and his eyes were two orbs of piercing, vibrant white light.
The air around him didn't smell like smoke anymore. It felt like ozone and fresh ink. To Kaito or the presence he had become the world was no longer a chaotic mess of heat and debris. It was a canvas.
A flat, hyper-vibrant plane where every object was defined by bold, jagged outlines and rich, saturated colors. The fire wasn't a chemical reaction; it was a series of orange and red brushstrokes that he could simply... edit.
The falling pillar was frozen mid-air, surrounded by thick, black "action lines" that suggested the force of gravity without actually allowing it to function.
The elders looked up, their faces rendered in high-fidelity ink, their terror captured in a still-frame of absolute clarity.
Kaito didn't feel the weight of his body. He didn't feel the burning in his lungs. The Trust of the people he had saved tonight, the silent, heavy belief of Tanaka-san, Mrs. Watanabe, and the children had condensed into a rhythmic, pulsating bass-track that resonated in the marrow of his bones.
He was in the zone-like state now.
He reached out a white-gloved hand and touched the surface of the frozen pillar. It didn't feel like stone. It felt like cold, heavy cardstock.
SNAP.
The sound of his fingers clicking was the only thing that moved in the silent, 2D world.
Suddenly, the pillar didn't slide; it re-positioned. In the blink of an eye, the massive concrete monolith was moved ten feet to the left, where it slammed into the empty foundation of a vacant lot.
It didn't shatter into 3D dust, it landed with a muted thump, like a heavy textbook hitting a carpeted floor, and became a static part of the background.
Tanaka-san blinked, his eyes wide, white circles of pure shock. He couldn't see the face of his savior, the light radiating from the white suit was too sharp to focus on.
To the old man, this was a "Dazzling Guy," a miracle made of ink and light that had stepped out of a dream to save the discarded.
"Who... what are you?" Tanaka-san wheezed.
Kaito didn't answer. He didn't have to. He looked at the wheelchair, which was still fused to a piece of jagged rebar. He didn't use force. He simply pointed his finger.
SNAP.
The wheelchair popped out of the wreckage like a sticker being peeled off a page. It was moved to a layer where the debris no longer existed.
Tanaka-san gasped as he found himself safe in the center of the street, his chair restored to its original, unbent form, glowing with the same white energy that radiated from Kaito.
'The inventory needs sorting,' Kaito thought, his mind sounding out like a layered, digital symphony. 'I need to tidy up this block.'
He didn't run.
He stepped.
In the 3D world, moving required friction and time. In this new, flat reality, Kaito simply "re-composed" himself. He walked through the air, his white-gloved feet finding purchase on invisible perspective lines. To any watcher, he was a cel-shaded entity sliding across the world at impossible speeds.
He appeared at the base of a crumbling apartment complex three blocks away.
Through his 2D vision, the building was a cross-section, a detailed architectural map. He could see the "ink" of the people trapped inside glowing embers of life hidden behind the black lines of the walls.
SNAP.
He swung his arm in a wide arc, and a trail of white, shimmering ink followed his glove, carving a literal "exit" into the side of the building.
Behind a dumpster thirty feet away, Hideki the reporter was having a mental breakdown. His "Camera-Eye" quirk a biological recorder that broadcasted directly to his news agency's satellite was whirring at a mechanical frequency that suggested it was about to catch fire.
He was broadcasting live.
Across Japan, late-night television programs were interrupted. On the massive neon screens of Shibuya and the tiny smartphones of sleeping teenagers, the orange, grainy footage of the fire was suddenly replaced by the hyper-vibrant, 2D brilliance of the White Guy.
The world watched in stunned silence as a figure who looked like a drawing moved through a 3D nightmare, editing the disaster out of existence.
Kaito didn't know the world was watching. He didn't know Hideki was there. He reached into the building. To him, the people inside were light as paper.
SNAP.
He grabbed a mother and her child, his white gloves glowing as he "pulled" them through the rift he had drawn. He didn't carry them down; he simply placed them on the "bottom layer" of the street.
Every person Kaito touched was suddenly "inverted." Their soot-covered clothes didn't change, but a shimmering white outline appeared around them, a protective "halo" that shielded them from the 3D heat that was still trying to eat its way back into the Zone.
He went on a spree. His mind is in the zone.
SNAP.
A collapsing roof in the next building was "flattened" into a harmless gray sketch.
SNAP.
A massive burst pipe that was scalding a group of office workers was "muted," the water turning into harmless, blue ink droplets that dissolved before hitting the ground.
SNAP.
A car that was about to explode was "re-drawn" as a static, non-combustible prop.
Kaito was moving with a stylish, dazzling rhythm, his white suit never catching a single speck of dust.
He was the master of the canvas, his clicks punctuating the silence of the Ashita district with the authority of a god.
-----
While this was happening, four miles away in the commercial district, All Might was fighting his own war. The future Symbol of Peace was a golden blur, punching through walls and carrying dozens of people on his back.
He was the pinnacle of heroism, blood, sweat, and overwhelming muscle. He was pushing his failing body to the absolute limit to clear the fires in the "Priority A" sector.
All Might was completely unaware of what was happening in the "Low-Priority" Ashita district.
To him, that sector was a dark spot on the map, one he hoped the local fire departments and other pro-heroes could handle until he could finish his current task. He was one of the strongest man in the world, but he was still bound by the laws of distance. He couldn't be everywhere. He was saving hundreds, but in the Ashita district, Kaito was saving thousands with a flick of his wrist.
The contrast was absolute. All Might was the hero the world knew. Kaito, in this moment, was the hero the world had never imagined.
Kaito reached the center of the main intersection in Ashita. The entire district was now his canvas. He felt the trust of every person he had saved pulsing through his suit. It was a high-frequency vibration that reached a fever pitch.
"The shift is over," Kaito whispered.
He raised both hands toward the sky. The bass-track reached a deafening crescendo that shook the foundations of the city.
SNAP. SNAP.
The world inverted. For a single, blinding second, the black smoke turned white, and the white suit turned black. Every flame in the district every ember, every chemical fire was vacuumed into a single, two-dimensional point above Kaito's head. It was a tiny ball of concentrated black ink.
With a final, effortless flick of his wrist, Kaito tossed the ink-ball into the upper atmosphere. It streaked upward like a white comet through the black smoke, and then silence.
The 2D filter peeled away like old wallpaper. The vibrant colors faded back into the dull, smoky grays of a 3D disaster. The white suit flickered and disappeared. The white hair dimmed, turning back into a matted mess of ash and charcoal.
Kaito Arisaka stood in the middle of a perfectly clear, fire-free street. Thousands of people stood on the sidewalks, their lives saved, staring at the empty air where the White Clad Suited Guy had just been standing.
All Might, miles away, looked toward the Ashita district. He saw the comet of white light streak into the sky. He saw the black smoke over that part of the city vanish in an instant. He stood atop a skyscraper, his chest heaving, his eyes wide with a confusion he couldn't name but he was grateful. The fire he had been racing toward... was simply gone.
"Thank you. Whoever you may be." he whispered and felt relief.
-----
Kaito, covered in soot and vomit, stumbled into a dark alleyway 10 blocks away. He leaned against a brick wall, his heart hammering, his body reclaiming its exhaustion with a vengeance.
He didn't want a medal. He didn't want a debut. He just wanted to go home.
"I'm so tired," he wheezed, his voice back to a human rasp. "The adrenaline is too much. Thankfully, Grandma's home is really at the edge of this city. I stopped the fire from spreading there."
He didn't see Hideki the reporter collapse in his dumpster, clutching his head as his quirk overheated. He didn't know that the footage of his stylish, dazzling "Snaps" had already been viewed by sixty million people. He just wanted to find a safe place that wasn't on fire and go back to being a nobody.
~~~~~
[A/n]
How about it? Is it still unbearable? I tried to polish and edit my draft before publishing. Did my best.
Please leave a comment and write review. And leave some powerstones, thanks.