The video was everywhere before the smoke had even cleared from the Shizuoka chemical plant. It didn't matter that the frame rate struggled to track the movement.
Within two hours of the "Nine-Second X" event, Hideki's footage had been mirrored on every major platform from Tokyo to New York.
Kaito Arisaka sat in the back of the school library, his hood pulled low. On the screen of a cracked school tablet, he watched the "Perfect Entity" step out of the shadows.
The white suit looked like a beacon against the industrial grime.
The orange lenses of the glasses caught the flickering light of the chemical fire. It was the same man from the Ashita fire, but clearer. Sharper.
'Nine seconds,' Kaito thought. 'I spent nine seconds in that skin, and now the entire country is screaming again.'
Katio closed the browser tab. He didn't feel pride. He felt the weight of the "Updates" pressing against his ribs.
Because of that video, Kaito's skin felt tighter, more durable. His vision was sharper.
The "Upgrades" were feeding on the viral views of a millions people who believed they had just seen a Hero X returned.
-----
Nezu sipped his tea, his black eyes fixed on three different monitors. Each was running a different forensic analysis of the Shizuoka footage.
"It's not a standard Quirk, Aizawa," Nezu said. His voice was high, melodic, and devoid of humor.
Aizawa, younger and with slightly less stubble than his future self, leaned against the wall. He looked exhausted.
"The compression is the problem. The villain, Bulkhead, wasn't just crushed; he was flattened into a two-dimensional plane. Our labs can't figure out how he's still breathing. It's like his third dimension was simply... deleted."
"It's the efficiency," Nezu pointed out, pausing the video at the moment Hero X flicked the hex nut. "Look at the posture. Look at the suit. This isn't a hero who is struggling. This is a person performing a task."
Nezu spun his chair around. "The HPSC thought Hero X was a one-time anomaly at the Musutafu fire disaster. This proves he is a persistent force. And once again, the epicenter is in Shizuoka."
"You still think it's that kid? Arisaka?" Aizawa asked"
"The 'Dud' who refused UA to go to a trade school?" Nezu smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes. "He was in a workshop in the school from where this happened. The HPSC is checking his alibi. If he's there, he's innocent. If he's not... he's the primary catalyst and suspect of these two incidents.
-----
Kaito knew Nezu would be looking. He knew HPSC Agents would be looking.
Kaito stood up and walked toward the school's server closet behind the library. The door was locked with a heavy-duty physical key. Kaito didn't use a key. He touched the lock.
'Render: 2D.'
SNAP.
The internal tumblers became a flat image. He turned the handle. The door opened. He stepped inside.
The school's CCTV hub was a humming rack of outdated hard drives. Kaito found the drive labeled Shop 1-B - Internal.
Kaito didn't delete the footage. Deleting it would be a red flag. Instead, he touched the drive casing.
'Update frame data.'
Snap.
Kaito didn't change what happened. He just "offset" the internal clock of the recording.
In the real world, Kaito had left the room at 12:10 PM and returned at 12:16 PM.
In the "Updated" footage, the digital timestamp would show Kaito Arisaka standing by the electrical panel, struggling with a wrench, for the entire duration of the fight.
Kaito edited the 2D data so the "digital Kaito" in the video dropped his wrench three times. He made sure the "digital Kaito" looked panicked and confused by the smoke.
He finished the edit and relocked the door.
'Step one: Digital trail cleared,' he thought. 'Now for the physical one.'
-----
Nemuri—not yet the "R-Rated Hero," but already a rising star at UA—was staring at the "Hero X" suit on her phone.
"The tailoring is impossible," she remarked. "The lines are too sharp. It doesn't look like support gear. It looks like... high fashion from another dimension. Who is this guy? He looks like he should be running a Fortune 500 company, not fighting mutation-types in a scrapyard."
"He's a vigilante, Kayama," a senior teacher grunted. "A dangerous one."
"Is he?" Nemuri mused. "He saved the driver. He didn't break a sweat. There's something... magnetic about him. The way he walks. It's like he's the only person in the world who knows exactly what he's doing. All Might brings hope, but this guy? He manipulated reality."
She felt a strange shiver. It wasn't attraction. It was the feeling of looking at something that was "perfect."
-----
Rikiya Yotsubashi, Re-Destro sat in his high-back chair, his long fingers steepled. He wasn't a villain yet in the eyes of the public. He was a successful businessman. Building an army on the other hand.
But his heart was racing.
"The liberation of quirks," he whispered, watching the "Nine-Second X" video for the fiftieth time.
His assistant stood nearby. "Sir? Is there something wrong with the footage?"
"No," Re-Destro said, his face darkening as his stress-induced spots began to appear. "It's the opposite. This 'Hero X'... he doesn't use his quirk. He is the quirk. Look at the way he manipulates the dimensions of the world. This is the ultimate expression of the individual. He doesn't ask permission from reality. He said it."
Re-Destro gripped the armrest of his chair, the metal groaning. "The HPSC will try to cage him. They'll try to make him a puppet. We cannot let that happen. Find out where this occurred. I want to know everything about the Shizuoka industrial zone."
-----
"Arisaka, have a seat," Mr. Goro said.
The teacher looked stressed. Two men in dark suits—HPSC investigators—were standing in the corner. Kaito recognized the "vibe." They weren't heroes.
They were hunters.
Kaito sat down.
He slouched. He kept his hands slightly shaky.
"These gentlemen want to ask you a few questions about the surge in Shop 1-B," Goro explained.
"Did you see the man in the white suit, Arisaka-kun?" one of the agents asked. He was holding a tablet with a freeze-frame of Hero X. "And also where were you when this happened?"
Kaito looked at the screen.
He let his eyes widen. He let his breathing hitch.
"Yes, he is Hero X of course" Kaito said. His voice was normal. "I thought it was exhilarating. I am his huge fan, I am thankful he saved Kimiko-san from the villain."
"Oh, I was trying to get the bypass valve shut. I thought the room was going to explode." Kaito continued.
"The timing is very specific," the agent said. "The villain was neutralized at 12:14. You claim you were at the valve during that exact window?"
"I don't know the time," Kaito muttered, looking at the floor. "The lights were out. It was hot. I just wanted to be safe."
"Check the CCTV," Mr. Goro interrupted. "Arisaka was in the workshop. You can see him on the tape."
The agent looked at his partner. They had already seen the tape. They had seen the "digital" Kaito fumbling with the wrench.
"Very well," the agent said. "And the woman? Kimiko Arisaka? She's your hardware's manager, correct?"
"She's okay, right?" Kaito asked. "The news said she was saved. I just wanted to confirm it"
"She's fine. She claims the man in the white suit spoke to her. But she didn't clearly see his face even up close"
The agents left five minutes later. They didn't have anything. His alibi was "digitally" perfect.
-----
Mera sat in the dark, her eyes burning.
"The CCTV is too clean," she said.
"Ma'am?" the tech asked.
"Look at the way the wrench falls in the video. The frame rate skips by a fraction of a millisecond. It's a perfect edit. Too perfect."
She pulled up Kaito's file.
She tapped her pen against the console.
"We stop asking questions. Questions give him time to prepare an answer. We need a 'Stress Test.'"
-----
Ryuko, a third-year student, was in the gym, her body half-transformed into a dragon.
"Did you see the Shizuoka video?" her classmate asked.
Ryuko grunted, crushing a reinforced steel bar. "I saw it. It's unsettling."
"Unsettling? He's amazing!"
"That's exactly why it's unsettling," Ryuko said, reverting to her human form. "Heroes are supposed to struggle. That man... Hero X... he didn't look like he was working. He looked like he was correcting a mistake. It felt cold. If that's what a 'Perfect Hero' looks like, then I don't think I want to be one."
------
Hideki lay on his back, his eyes bandaged. He shouldn't have been able to see, but his "Camera Eye" quirk was still processing the light through the gauze.
"One billion views," his editor whispered over the phone. "Hideki, you're the man of the hour. Everyone wants the raw files."
"They can't have them," Hideki rasped.
He was looking at a frame he hadn't uploaded yet. He had zoomed in on the background of the chemical plant yard.
-----
Kaito was back to sweeping. The store was quiet.
Kimiko was sitting at the counter, her legs bandaged. She hadn't said a word to him since he arrived. She just kept staring at the door.
"Kimiko-san? Are you really okay now?" Kaito asked.
She jumped. For a second.
Then, Kaito slumped his shoulders. He let his glasses slide down his nose. He looked tired and small.
"Oh. It's just you, Kaito," she sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm just... tired. Yes.. I'm fine. Thankfully I was saved"
"Grandma said you should go home early," Kaito said. "I can close up."
"Yeah. Maybe." She stood up slowly. "Kaito? That man today. Hero X."
"Yeah?"
"He didn't feel like a person," Kimiko whispered.
"You know, for a moment I was really happy meeting the legendary Hero X, the media was hyping about.
But when he touched the truck, it didn't feel like he is using his Quirk. It felt like the world just... listened to him. It was terrifying."
Kaito didn't say anything. He went back to sweeping.
'It is terrifying,' he thought. 'Because it's not a choice. It's an algorithm of reality. And I'm the one trapped in the middle of it.'
-----
Kaito stopped under a streetlamp on his way home. He felt a prickle on his shoulder.
He reached up and pinched the air. Between his fingers, a thin, white line of light flickered.
It was an "Update." The "Trust Value" from the viral video and public belief was so high that his body couldn't keep up with the demand to stay mundane.
He didn't panic. He held the thread between his fingers.
'Render 3D. Render Trash.'
SNAP.
The thread turned into a piece of gray cotton lint. He dropped it into a bin.
'The HPSC is going to move soon,' Kaito thought. 'Agent Mera isn't the type to wait. She's going to trigger maybe a crisis at the school.'
Kaito adjusted his clothes.
'Fine. Let them try. I'll be so useless they'll their decisions'