The heat in the Ashita district had moved past the point of mere physical pain and entered a realm of psychological warfare. It was a thick, vibrating wall that pushed against Kaito's chest, threatening to collapse his lungs with every desperate pull of air. To say it was hot was an insult to the catastrophe; the atmosphere was a pressurized soup of vaporized industrial chemicals, pulverized drywall, and the oily, black residue of burning asphalt.
Kaito Arisaka was no longer a person. He was a biological machine running on a hardware-store battery that had been drained four hours ago. He was the human equivalent of a "Check Engine" light that had been flashing for so long the bulb was starting to melt.
"I'm going to die in a spin-off," Kaito's internal monologue wheezed, the voice in his head sounding like a rusted shovel scraping over a dry sidewalk. 'I spent fifteen years meticulously avoiding the 'Main Quest.' I stayed in the background. I memorized the exact inventory of three-quarter-inch galvanized nails and the shelf-life of every brand of instant ramen just so I wouldn't end up in a situation that required 'character growth.' And yet, here I am. Dying in a fire that isn't even the climax of the season. I'm a background asset in a localized disaster that'll get three panels of coverage before the sports segment. I'm dying for a plot I didn't even sign up for.'
He wiped his eyes with the back of a hand that didn't even look like flesh anymore. The soot from the earlier chimney collapse had mixed with his sweat and the greasy residue of burning polymers, forming a thick, black, high-contrast lacquer that coated every square inch of his skin. His hair was a jagged, ash-frozen crown of charcoal that crunched when he moved his head.
His FamilyMart vest was a charred, unrecognizable rag clinging to his ribs like a second skin of burnt polyester.
Between the black mask of grime on his face and the heavy, faceless rubber of his industrial respirator, Kaito's identity had been completely deleted. If his own grandmother had been standing three feet away, she wouldn't have seen her grandso, she would have seen a "Soot-Guy," a nameless, grimy, unrecognizable specter running around the ruins of a neighborhood the Pro-Heroes had deemed "low-priority."
He stumbled around the corner of the community center, his boots sticking to the softening asphalt with a sickening, tacky sound. Every step felt like he was pulling his feet out of wet cement. Through the swirling orange embers and the thick, black curtains of smoke, the world narrowed down to a single, horrifying mechanical failure.
The construction site for the new high-rise a project Kaito had personally supplied with three hundred boxes of structural bolts six months ago had become a deathtrap. A massive secondary support pillar, a beast of reinforced concrete and rusted rebar the size of an ancient redwood, was leaning at a forty-five-degree angle.
It was held aloft by nothing more than three industrial-grade power lines, thick cables that were currently glowing a terrifying, incandescent cherry-red under the tension.
Directly beneath that leaning shadow, trapped behind a waist-high pile of collapsed masonry and shattered glass, were the "Regulars."
He saw them through the haze. Tanaka-san, the old man who came into the shop every Tuesday to complain that the 10mm bolts were "too shiny" for his projects.
Mrs. Watanabe, who always smelled like ginger and asked Kaito why a handsome boy like him was wasting time in a hardware shop. Two other men from the morning tea circle were clawing at a slab of granite with their bare, bleeding hands.
And in the center, protected by the circle of elders, were five children regulars from the FamilyMart candy aisle their faces white and frozen, their eyes reflecting the glowing red cables above.
"Hey!" Kaito roared, the sound muffled and distorted by the rubber of his mask into a deep, guttural growl that didn't sound human. "Move! Get the kids out of the gap!"
Tanaka-san looked up. He didn't see the kid who sold him WD-40. He didn't see a neighbor. He saw a blackened, masked demon emerging from the hellscape.
"The wheels... the metal is fused!" Tanaka-san screamed, his voice cracking through the roar of the flames. "The frame of the chair is welded to the beam! Go! Just take the children and run! Don't die here for nothing, boy!"
Kaito lunged forward. He didn't have a plan. He didn't have a Quirk. He didn't have a "System" or a "Cheat" or a voice in his head telling him he was the chosen one. He had a bent crowbar and a heart that was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
He jammed the bar into the debris blocking Tanaka's chair. He heaved. He threw his entire weight against the metal, his muscles screaming in a language of pure agony.
A tendon in his shoulder felt like it was being sliced by a white-hot wire. Nothing moved. The heat had essentially welded the urban rot into a single, immovable mass.
Skriiit.
The first power line gave way. The pillar groaned a deep, tectonic sound like a giant grinding its teeth and sank a foot closer to the group. The rush of air from its movement pushed a wave of ash and heat into Kaito's face.
"Stop, kid! Stop!" Tanaka-san grabbed Kaito's blackened wrist. The old man's hand was shaking, but his grip was surprisingly strong.
"Look at the cables! You can't move this! You're just a one person! Go find a hero! Go find someone who can actually do something!"
"I'm just the guy... who's here!" Kaito gasped, his lungs burning with every word. "I'm not... leaving you guys... to burn!"
"There's no time for that!" Mrs. Watanabe cried out, pushing a small girl toward a narrow gap in the debris. She looked at Kaito this grimy, anonymous with a terrifying, calm desperation.
"The gap... it's only big enough for the children. If you reach in, you can pull them through. But you have to do it now. The last cables are going to blow."
Kaito looked at the pillar. Then he looked at the elders.
They weren't trying to climb out anymore. They were leaning back, bracing their own aging bodies against the inner wall of the debris, using themselves as human pillars to create a tiny sanctuary for the kids. They were pinning themselves deeper into the trap, choosing to be crushed so that the children had a clear path to the gap.
"What about you?" Kaito's voice broke. He was looking at people he'd known his whole life choosing their own deaths.
"We've lived our shift, kid," Tanaka-san said, a strange, terrifyingly calm smile appearing on his soot-streaked face. "We've seen the world change. We've seen the heroes. But these kids? They haven't even seen the ocean yet. Save the future. That's the only job left. Now move!"
They pushed the first child toward the gap.
Kaito felt a surge of pure, unadulterated "Background Character" spite. He hated this. He hated the noble sacrifice. He hated that the world was built on the bodies of the people who didn't have a "Main Character" permit.
He hated that All Might was somewhere else being "Legendary" and saving people while Tanaka-san was preparing to be flattened by a construction error because he wasn't important enough. He hated those pro-heroes who weren't here, he hated every moment why this plot even happened.
Kaito's mind screamed as he pulled the first child through the gap.
"I'm a normal guy! I'm a nobody! Why are they looking at me like I'm the answer to a prayer?'
He pulled the second child out. The third. The fourth.
Skriiit. Skriiit.
The final two cables disintegrated into a shower of sparks.
The concrete pillar let out a final, screeching roar and began its terminal descent. It was ten thousand tons of reality coming down on these people.
The elders closed their eyes, shielding the last child with their own torsos, bracing for the weight that would erase them.
Kaito didn't run.
He didn't dive for safety.
In that moment, the "Trust and Belief" the invisible, suffocating weight of every "Thank you" for everyday for 10 years and every "You're a lifesaver, Arisaka" reached a critical mass.
It wasn't a feeling. It was a physical pressure that shattered the 3D laws of the world.
"I REFUSE THIS FUCKING TRAGEDY!"
It's just an instinct, his mind and body was screaming to flick his wrist.
SNAP.
The sound wasn't an explosion. It was a sharp, crystalline "Click."
Suddenly, the world didn't just stop; it transformed.
In an instant, the oily soot on Kaito's skin didn't just wash away; it was deleted. The grimy rags of his uniform and his hardware belt vanished.
He was suddenly standing tall, draped in a pristine, high-collared white suit that seemed to emit its own soft, ethereal glow. The fabric was sharp and perfectly tailored, defying the smoke and the gravity of the falling debris.
His hair, once a matted mess of ash and black, exploded into a flowing, shock-white mane, glowing with a vibrant energy that illuminated the dark alleyway.
His face was no longer hidden by a rubber mask. Instead, his features were sharp, refined, and entirely unfamiliar to him. His eyes were no longer bloodshot and weary; they were a piercing, vibrant white, glowing from within with a calm, terrifying intensity.
Kaito had no idea what was happening. He didn't know why he looked like this. He didn't know why his clothes had changed or why his hair was white.
He didn't know he looked like a god from another dimension. He just felt an impossible, absolute control over the space around him.
The orange, muddy haze of the fire vanished, replaced by a hyper-vibrant, high-contrast spectrum of color.
Everything around him the buildings, the fire, the smoke flattened into a world of rich, colorful ink-washes and bold outlines.
The falling pillar didn't hit the ground; it was caught in mid-air, frozen like a drawing on a page.
The roar of the fire was gone. In its place was a rhythmic, pulsating bass-track that resonated with his heart.
-----
Behind him, in a dumpster thirty feet away, Hideki the reporter stared at his camera-eye. The digital display was glitching, trying to process the white-clad figure that had just manifested out of the grime. It wasn't a hero Hideki had ever seen. It was a miracle recorded in ink.
The white-clad Kaito reached out a slender, white-gloved hand and touched the concrete pillar.
"Shift's over," he whispered, his voice vibrating with a crystalline clarity he didn't recognize and adding a flick of his wrist.
SNAP
~~~~~
[A/n]
"If you like the story, drop a review! If you hate the story, drop a review and tell me why—I'll read it while I'm on my 'lunch break' tomorrow. Your feedback is the only thing keeping the MC (and me) from quitting and becoming a full-time professional sleeper."