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(9 Advanced Chapters)
~~~~~
Kaito Arisaka turned seventeen. For two years, he lived as a normal student.
The "Trust Value" was no longer a currency; it was a physical weight. The world's collective belief in Hero X had grown into a fever.
Every time someone believed and adore to 'Hero X' for a miracle, Kaito's body attempted to render that miracle into reality.
Kaito stood in the hardware store basement. He looked at his hands.
They were steady.
The pressure wasn't from fear, but from the effort of keeping his skin from turning into fairer tone.
"Blemish," Kaito muttered.
Kaito used his mastery to put a scar across his knuckle. He manually halt the white pigment in his hair, forcing the black color to stay on the surface against the world's "Update."
Kaito shoved his face into his glasses. They were cheap. They distorted his vision. They were the opposite of the sharp orange lenses the public had seen.
He grabbed a handful of iron filings and some of them rubbed into his shirt. He smells like the shop.
-----
Hideki sat on a rooftop in downtown Musutafu. His "Camera-Eye" whirred. For two years, he had followed a single instinct. He called it his "guts."
He was no longer a student. He was the most followed freelance journalist in Japan.
"Two years," Hideki whispered, checking his shutter speed. "Two years of chasing Hero X."
In those two years, Hero X had appeared eleven times.
He had flattened a collapsing skyscraper in Tokyo.
He had edited a flooding river into a 2D-mural in Kyushu.
He never spoke to the press. He never signed an autograph.
"All Might brings the hope, the Symbol of Peace" Hideki muttered, his eye zooming in on the skyline. "But this guy... he brings the inevitable. He makes the world look like a drawing he's tired of."
Hideki's guts began to throb. The air pressure was dropping. He knew the feeling. The "Atmosphere of Glass" was settling over the city.
-----
Endeavor stood in his private training hall. The floor was molten.
He was the Number Two Hero. He had spent the last two years increasing his output, refining his "Prominence Burn," and pushing his body to the limit to close the gap between him and All Might.
But All Might wasn't the problem anymore.
Endeavor looked at a tablet on the floor. It showed the footage from the Shizuoka incident.
He watched the man in the white suit flick a stone. He watched a four-meter villain get edited like a grafitti from reality.
"I haven't heard or seen this type of quirk," Endeavor growled. The flames on his shoulders flared. "There is no heat. No displacement of energy. No struggle."
To Endeavor, X was an insult. A hero was supposed to be a pillar of fire and effort. X was a man who looked like he was strolling leisurely at the park.
"I will find him," Endeavor growled, the fire in his shoulders turned deeper red. "And I will make him sweat."
-----
All Might stood by the floor-to-ceiling window of the HPSC's executive office. He was a mountain of golden muscle, his presence filling the room with radiance.
He was at the absolute peak of his power.
Behind him, Agent Mera tapped a pen against a tablet.
"He's popular, Almight," Mera said. "In the last six months, public belief and trust in the Hero Ranking system has dropped by twelve percent. People aren't looking for a Symbol of Peace anymore. They're looking for a Hero X."
All Might turned, his signature smile fixed and bright, yet his blue eyes remained sharp. "The public is drawn to mystery, Mera. But a hero must be a person. One who bleeds, who struggles, and who inspires. This 'Hero X'... he is a vigilante. His motives are unknown. I'm just glad he wasn't a villain and caused damage to this country."
"A vigilante who is outperforming our Top 10," Mera replied. "He's a variable we can't control. And he's always tied back to Shizuoka."
"You still think it's that boy? Arisaka-shonen?" All Might asked, his voice a resonant boom that vibrated the glass.
"I think Arisaka is the center of the storm," Mera said. "The entity appears when the boy is in danger during the last fire disaster. We've been watching him for two years. He's the most normal teenager in Japan. We've already narrowed and tallied all the suspects for 2 years. And Arisaka is still my primary suspect. After all, Hero X is dangerous. His power is danger to the society."
All Might looked down at the city. "If he is the one, Mera, he is carrying a secret heavier than anyone. If he's not then, you guys literally caused a lot of headaches around the kid."
-----
Kaito walked through the hallways of Shizuoka Technical.
Kaito was eighteen months into his "Invisibility" campaign. He had carefully curated a 2.3 GPA. He was known as the kid who always had grease under his fingernails and never participated in class discussions.
Kaito adjusted his bowl cut in the hallway mirror.
'DAMN HPSC! WHY CAN'T THEY JUST LEAVE A NORMAL GUY ALONE! Oh, I'm not normal but still.'
He saw a group of first-years huddled around a phone. They were looking at a livestream.
"He's in Hosu!" one of them shouted. "Hero X just walked through a fire at the refinery! He didn't even get soot on his suit!"
Kaito felt the "Update" surge.
He was in Shizuoka, but the world's belief was so strong it was spawning a 2D-Projection of him in Hosu.
Kaito used his mastery to split his focus with precision.
In Hosu, "Hero X" walked through flames, rendering the heat into cold blue light.
In Shizuoka, Kaito Arisaka "timed" a trip over a trash can and dropped his lunch tray.
"Be careful, Arisaka," a teacher sighed, walking past.
"Sorry, Sensei," Kaito muttered, picking up a piece of broccoli.
Kaito's heart was steady, but a rapid rhythm in his body was syncing with the "Update."
He made himself look normal. He chose to look like a student who couldn't handle a piece of plastic.
-----
Best Jeanist stood on a balcony overlooking the Shizuoka industrial zone. He was a rising star, currently ranked in the top 20.
He adjusted the high collar of his denim suit.
"The fibers of this city are frayed," Jeanist remarked to his sidekick.
"Sir?"
"That X. He doesn't wear denim. He wears something... indescribable," Jeanist said. "I've analyzed the fabric from the sightings. It's not woven. It's a single, continuous sheet of high-density matter. It has no seams. It has no flaws."
To Best Jeanist, X was a nightmare of aesthetics. He was too "clean."
"I heard there is a boy down there," Jeanist said, pointing toward the vocational school. "The HPSC says he's a point of interest. I want to see his clothes."
"His clothes, sir?"
"The way a man wears his clothes tells you the state of his soul," Jeanist replied.
-----
The lights in the welding bay hummed.
Kaito was working on a heavy-duty hydraulic jack.
He knew the HPSC was watching. He knew Aizawa was leaning against the back wall, his eyes hidden behind his capture scarf.
'They're going to pulse the room,' Kaito's senses warned him. 'Sigh, when do they stop'
The "Update" was constant. The Hosu projection had finished its task. The data was returning to the source. Kaito was full of updated data.
Kaito gripped the hydraulic jack.
THUMP
THUMP
The HPSC triggered the EMP.
The lights died. The biometric scanners flared.
For a fraction of a second, something appeared but failed because of the physical interference.
Kaito didn't hesitate. He used his mastery of his quirk to move before the light returned.
'Render' Kaito thought.
He grabbed a jagged piece of scrap metal and slammed his own palm onto it. He manually lowered his invulnerability to zero. He chose to let the metal tear through his skin.
The lights flickered back on.
Aizawa was at his side in a heartbeat.
"Arisaka!" Aizawa grabbed Kaito's arm. He looked at the boy.
Kaito was hunched over, his bowl cut messy and singed. He was wearing his circle-rimmed glasses.
And he was bleeding.
Thick, red, human blood was pouring out of his palm, staining the workbench.
"I... I think the machine shorted," Kaito gasped. His breathing is shallow. He chose to let his eyes tears up a bit. "It... it hurt, Aizawa-san. It really hurt."
Aizawa looked at the blood. He looked at the biometric reading on the wall.
[IDENTIFICATION: ARISAKA, KAITO]
[PULSE: 160 BPM - SHOCK RESPONSE]
[TISSUE DAMAGE: REAL]
In the surveillance van, Mera threw her headset onto the console.
"He bled," the technician said. "The EMP hit the kid and he had a normal physical reaction. He's not the one."
"Then why did the camera catch a white shape?" Mera demanded.
"Static. Lens flare from the EMP. The kid is just a kid, Mera. We've wasted two years on a hardware store clerk."
Kaito sat on the school steps. The paramedic had finished bandaging his hand.
Aizawa stood ten feet away, watching the students leave. He walked over to Kaito.
"You're making a habit of this, Arisaka," Aizawa said.
"I'm just unlucky," Kaito replied. He pushed his circle-rimmed glasses up his nose. They were smudged with grease.
"Unlucky people usually die in this city," Aizawa said. "You just keep getting minor cuts. It's like the world is trying to kill you and missing by an inch every time."
"I hope it keeps missing," Kaito said.
He stood up. He walked toward the hardware store.
Kaito had survived the EMP. He had survived the two-year observation.
He reached the store. Saki was in the back, cooking mackerel.
"You're late," she said without looking up.
"The power went out at school," Kaito said.
He sat down at the table. He looked at his bandaged hand.
Age 15. Done.
Age 16. Done.
Age 17. Done.
He was one year away from graduation. One year away from the clean slate.
Outside, the Hero X fan club was chanting.
They had a new mural. It showed the man in the white suit holding a stone like a planet.
Kaito took a bite of his fish. It was salty. It was real. He finished his meal and went to the basement to do homework.