Kaito stood at a row of lockers, pulling on a pair of navy blue coveralls that were two sizes too large.
He didn't look like a Hero X. Kaito looked like a teenager who had stayed up too late playing video games or, more accurately, a teenager who had spent four hours the previous night inventorying 10mm bolts.
Kaito felt the "Upgrades" humming beneath his skin—a constant, low-frequency vibration. It wasn't a struggle anymore; it was like holding a door shut against a light breeze.
He had mastered the technique during his final months of middle school. By focusing on the gritty, physical sensation of the rough fabric of his coveralls against his skin, he kept the pearlescent glow of his body dampened.
"Arisaka, you're daydreaming again," Saito said, leaning against the locker next to him.
Saito was the kind of kid who belonged in a place like this.
His hands were always stained with something—grease, ink, or dirt. He didn't have big dreams; he just wanted to graduate so he could take over his uncle's auto-body shop.
"Just thinking about the procurement list for Shop class," Kaito replied, his voice flat and unremarkable. "The school switched to a cheaper supplier for the welding rods. The slag is going to be a nightmare to clean."
Saito snorted, sticking a pencil to his palm using his Static Grip quirk just to keep his hands busy. "Only you would care about the slag quality, man. Most guys are just trying not to blind themselves with the arc."
"Precision saves time. Time is money," Kaito muttered, closing his locker with a dull thud.
-----
Back at the Arisaka Hardware Store, Saki was sitting in the small office above the shop floor, her eyes squinting at a stack of invoices. The world outside was loud, filled with talk of heroes and the mysterious "Hero X," but inside these walls, life was measured in yen and stock levels.
She looked at a photo on her desk—a picture of Kaito from his middle school graduation. He looked... different in the photo than he did in person.
On paper, he was a handsome, albeit tired, young man. But when she looked at him across the dinner table, he felt like a shadow.
"He's working too hard," she whispered to the empty room.
Saki wasn't a hero, nor she has a quirk, but she wasn't a fool. She had watched Kaito grow up as a "Dud," and she had seen the way he looked after the fire in Musutafu. He didn't come home traumatized; he came home calculated. His build and figure look exactly like the one they call 'Soot Hero'.
She then remembered the way he had fixed the leaky pipe in the basement the week after the fire. He hadn't used tools. She had peered through the door and seen him simply... touching the metal.
The pipe had smoothed out, the rust vanishing as if it had never existed. He didn't know how he did it. Maybe he awakened his quirk during the incident but kept it a secret from everyone including her.
She hadn't said anything. In this world, having a secret was often the only way to stay safe. If Kaito wanted to pretend he was a normal boy learning to be a technician, she would let him.
But it pained her to see him "dimming" his own light. Every time he slumped his shoulders or wore those baggy clothes, she felt the weight of his sacrifice.
"Just let him have his pension," she sighed, signing a check for a lumber shipment. "Let the boy have his boring life if that's what keeps the monsters away."
------
In the workshop, the heat was stifling. Twenty students were huddled over welding stations, the air filled with the sharp, crackling sound of electricity meeting metal.
Kaito held the welding torch with a steady hand. His "Upgrades" were trying to offer him perfect stabilization.
He allowed his hand to have a natural, human tremor. He made sure the bead of his weld wasn't a perfect, machine-precise line. It had to be "good enough" to pass, but "messy enough" to be human.
"Watch the heat, Arisaka!" Mr. Gato barked, walking past. "You're getting too close to the seam."
"Understood, Sensei," Kaito said, pulling back.
Inside, Kaito was bored.
He already knew the melting point of this specific alloy down to the decimal. He could feel the thermal expansion of the metal through the soles of his boots.
Kaito didn't need the goggles; he could "see" the molecular structure of the weld.
But he kept the goggles on. He kept the "Mundane Meditation" active.
'I am a student. I am learning.'
As he worked, a low-frequency pulse rippled through the floorboards. It wasn't a machine. It the "Trust Spike."
-----
Somewhere nearby, people were talking about Hero X. The collective belief of the public was like a radio signal his body couldn't stop receiving.
Every time someone whispered a prayer or looked at a grainy photo of the "Snap," Kaito's "Upgrades" surged.
Kaito felt the skin on his arms tighten, the oil and soot of the workshop trying to slide off his "Indestructible" pores.
'Again?,' he hissed internally.
Kaito gripped the hot metal of the workbench. He didn't use his power; he used the heat. He allowed the searing temperature of the nearby weld to sting his palm.
The shimmer receded. The oil stayed on his skin. Then after a few seconds, it vanished as if it never happened.
-----
Two blocks away from the school, Agent Mera sat in a van filled with monitors. She was watching a live feed of the school's hallway cameras.
"Any hits on the bio-signature?" she asked the technician sitting next to her.
"Nothing, Ma'am," the tech replied. "We've scanned every student in the Maintenance track. They all show standard Quirk factors or, in the case of the 'Dud' Arisaka, a complete lack of one. No energy spikes, no reality-warping signatures."
Mera narrowed her eyes, focusing on a screen showing Kaito walking toward the cafeteria. He looked pathetic. His posture was terrible, his clothes were stained, and he seemed to have the charisma of a wet paper bag.
"He's too perfect," Mera whispered.
"Ma'am?"
"Look at his movements. He never trips. He never bumps into anyone. Even in a crowded hallway, he moves with a level of spatial awareness that's... statisticaly improbable for a teenager with no Quirk. He's not just 'average.' He's performing average."
"You think he's a Catalyst?"
"I think he was at the center of the Snap, and he walked away without a scratch. Nezu wants him at UA, and Nezu is never wrong about potential. If Arisaka is hiding something, he's doing it with a level of discipline that rivals a deep-cover operative. Keep the drones on him. I want to see what happens when he thinks no one is looking."
-----
The school day finally ended, and Kaito made his way to the hardware store. The "Updates" were still humming, but he had them under a tight lid.
Kaito walked past a newsstand. A magazine cover caught his eye. It was a high-resolution print of the 'X' symbol found on a wall in Musutafu.
[THE GOD AMONG US: IS HERO X THE SECOND COMING OF QUIRKS?]
Kaito didn't look away. He stared at it with a cold, clinical detachment.
'You're making my life very difficult,' he thought. 'Every magazine this sells is another pound of pressure on my ribcage'. He glanced at the write who wrote the article, 'Asato Hideki'
He entered the hardware store, the bell chiming a familiar, dull note. Kimiko was at the counter, looking stressed.
"Arisaka! Finally. The HPSC was here again."
Kaito's heart didn't skip a beat. He had already prepared for this. "What did they want? More witness statements about the fire?"
"They were asking about your work performance," Kimiko said, crossing her arms.
"They wanted to know if you've ever shown 'unusual physical aptitude.' I told them the 'Truth', you're a 'clumsy' kid who can barely sort a box of nails without dropping half of them."
"Thanks, Kimiko-san," Kaito said, a small, cynical smile tugging at his lips. "I appreciate the honesty."
"Whatever. Get to the warehouse. We have a shipment of heavy-duty industrial shelving that needs to be assembled. And don't break anything. Those units are expensive."
Kaito headed to the warehouse. He locked the door behind him.
He looked at the crates of steel shelving. Each one weighed nearly eighty kilograms. A normal fifteen-year-old would need a dolly and a partner to move them.
Kaito didn't use a dolly. He didn't even use his full strength.
He moved with a clinical efficiency, his mind focused on the ROI of the task. He treated the assembly like a puzzle.
Cling. Clang.
Snap.
Kaito used the "Updates" just enough to ensure the bolts were tightened to the exact torque specified in the manual. He didn't make them "perfect"—he made them "compliant."
As he worked, he heard a faint buzzing sound outside the high, narrow window of the warehouse.
He didn't look up immediately. He knew that sound. A drone.
'HPSC?' he wondered. 'Probably. They're like vultures waiting for a carcass to twitch.'
Kaito deliberately fumbled a bolt, letting it clatter across the concrete floor. He cursed under his breath, a practiced, frustrated sound.
He got down on his knees and crawled under a shelf to "search" for it, staying out of the drone's line of sight for a full minute.
While under the shelf, he checked his phone. A text from Saki: 'Mackerel is in the fridge. Don't work too late. You have an exam tomorrow.'
Kaito sighed. This was the life he was protecting. A bowl of mackerel and a quiet room.
Kaito stood up, holding the "lost" bolt, and gave the window a bored, blank stare. The drone hovered for a moment longer before buzzing away.
-----
Saito sat on the train, staring at his phone. He was looking at a photo he'd taken earlier in Shop class. It was a candid shot of Kaito welding.
He didn't know why he'd taken it. There was just something... weird about the way Arisaka handled tools.
"He's like a ghost," Saito muttered to himself.
He zoomed in on the photo. In the reflection of Kaito's welding mask, for just a fraction of a second, the sparks didn't look like sparks.
They looked like... lines. Like a drawing.
Saito rubbed his eyes. "I'm seeing things. Too much fumes in the shop."
He deleted the photo.
Arisaka was just a guy. A boring, retail-obsessed guy who probably knew more about tax brackets than heroes.
"Still," Saito thought, looking out the window at the passing city. "It must be nice. To be that sure about what you want. No dreams, no drama. Just... pipes."
-----
Kaito lay in bed, the lights off. He was doing his nightly "Audit."
Kaito ran a mental scan of his body. The "Updates" were stable. His skin was back to its standard, slightly-oily texture. His vision was dimmed. He felt "3D."
'The HPSC is suspicious, They're stalking me, and the public thinks I'm a messiah. But I'm still here. No Hero X something moment'
He looked at his hand in the moonlight.
Kaito closed his eyes, falling into a dreamless sleep, while outside his window, the city of Shizuoka continued to whisper the name of X