Hikaru POV
The night air smelled like smoke and wet concrete. Hikaru's feet hurt-bare, bruised, bleeding-but he kept running. He didn't know where he was going. Anywhere that wasn't home. Anywhere that wasn't that room.
That room.He almost stopped breathing at the memory.
He wiped at his face. The blood was dry now, crusted beneath his nails. His hands wouldn't stop shaking. He didn't know if it was from the cold or the fear or… everything.
"I didn't want to… I didn't…" His voice cracked.
A whisper answered him.
Liar.
Hikaru froze.
He spun around-nobody there. Just a dark alley lit by a flickering streetlamp. Trash bins. A stray cat darting under a fence.
He swallowed, trembling.
"I'm just… tired," he whispered to himself.
But the whisper came again.
Monster.
He backed up until his shoulders hit the brick wall. Breath quick. Heart pounding.
"No… stop…"
He covered his ears, but the voice was inside, not outside.
You made them scream.You liked it.You'll do it again.
"I won't! I won't hurt anyone again!" he cried.
The shadows around him stirred, shifting. Maybe from the lamplight. Maybe not. He didn't know anymore.
He walked for hours, every street blending into the next. At some point he stole a jacket from a laundry linetoo big, sleeves dangling past his handsbut it hid the blood on his clothes.
He kept his head down. People passed him without noticing. A few glanced, frowned, but said nothing. He looked like a runaway kid, nothing more.
That lie felt safer than the truth.
By morning, he was shaking too hard to keep walking. Hunger clawed at his stomach. He slumped behind a vending machine outside a corner store.
People were crowded around a small TV in the store window, watching the morning news. Hikaru didn't care at first. He just needed to rest, even for a moment.
Then he heard it.
"-the horrific double homicide of an adult couple"-"the primary suspect is their twelve-year-old son-""-Amano Hikaru, believed to be armed with a dangerous, unidentified quirk-"
His chest caved in.
"No… no, no, no…" he whispered as he pushed himself up, moving closer, hiding behind a trash bin.
On the screen was his school photo-his face, his eyes, his too-big uniform.
A reporter continued:
"Authorities describe him as extremely dangerous.Witnesses claim the crime scene contained signs of deliberate, targeted violence."
Deliberate.
The word stabbed him.
"That's not true…" His voice trembled. "It wasn't on purpose… I didn't… I didn't…"
People murmured:
"That kid? That's terrifying.""Imagine a child doing something like that.""He should be locked up."
Each voice felt like a hammer. Each whisper was a chain tightening around his neck.
Then another voice spoke.
Not from the crowd.Not from the TV.From inside his head.
They're right to fear you.
Hikaru gasped and clutched his head.
"Stop… stop…"
You killed them because you're broken.You killed them because you wanted to.
"No! I didn't want- They hurt me! They..."
And you hurt them back.You liked watching them suffer.
"I DIDN'T!" he screamed inside his hands.
People turned. He ducked immediately, heart slamming. Had they heard him?
The shadows around his feet trembled. Twisted. Moved with his panic like living things.
He forced himself to stand and stumbled away, running again.
He didn't know where.He didn't know why.
He just knew he couldn't stay there.He couldn't be seen.He couldn't let anyone else get hurt.
By afternoon, he reached an abandoned construction site. Concrete skeletons of unfinished buildings, rusted scaffolding, wind howling through hollow windows. No one would look for a kid here.
He curled up inside a half-built room. Dust covered him. His stomach growled, but the hunger didn't hurt as much as everything else.
His parents' last screams echoed in his ears.The news anchors calling him a monster.The whispering voice in his mind.
He pressed his forehead to his knees.
"Please… someone… just make it stop…"
Another voice replied.
Not his.Not from outside.From deeper.
You can't escape the Hollow.
The shadows rippled across the ground.
Hikaru didn't look up.He didn't want to see what fear would show him next.
Hikaru pressed himself into a corner, knees pulled to his chest, trying to make himself smaller, invisible.
The whispers had grown louder, overlapping now:
You can't hide.They'll come for you.You are the Hollow.
"I'm not…" he whispered, voice barely audible. "I'm not a monster…"
The shadows at his feet twisted and stretched, writhing like living things. Every flicker, every movement was amplified by the voices inside his head.
A sudden clatter froze him. A high-heeled step on the scaffolding above. Someone had arrived.
Hikaru's heart slammed. He pressed back against the wall, shaking violently, trying to melt into the shadows.
From above, a voice rang out:
"Stop right there!"
Hikaru froze, every muscle trembling.
The figure descended into the broken room: tall, commanding, dressed in black with her signature mask and whip at her side. Midnight.
Hikaru's stomach dropped. He had seen her on the news, on pro hero posters, even on training footage in school. But he had never expected her to find him-not here, not now.
"You…" her voice was smooth but cutting, scanning him carefully. "Amano Hikaru."
Hikaru's blood ran cold. He hadn't spoken his name aloud. Hadn't told anyone.
The news…
He gasped. They had broadcast him. His face. His name. His crime.
"No! Don't! Please don't-" he shrieked, backing against the wall.
Midnight's eyes narrowed, but she took no step forward. Her hands rose slowly, palms outward—not threatening, just controlling the space.
"I know who you are," she said. "And I know what you're accused of. I've seen the scene. The photos. The reports."
Hikaru shook his head violently. "I didn't mean… I didn't want to! I tried to stop it! I didn't..."
A whisper hissed inside his skull:
Monster.They all fear you.You'll hurt them if you stay.
The shadows at his feet flared, reacting to his panic. Twisting into shapes he couldn't control-fingers, faces, screaming silhouettes. His mind screamed back at them, trying to shut it out.
Midnight instinctively stepped back, scanning for sudden attacks. Her voice was calm but tense:
"You're out of options. You can't hide from what's coming. You can't run from what you've done."
Hikaru pressed his hands over his ears. "No! Stop! Stop it! I'm not a monster! I didn't want this!"
You like it.You made them scream.You'll do it again.
He doubled over, hyperventilating. The shadows erupted, rising around him, thick and black, like a storm made of smoke and teeth.
Midnight took another step back, her stance defensive but cautious. She wasn't trying to fight a child. She was trying to survive.
Hikaru's vision blurred. He could see their shapes twist and warp. Voices overlapped—his own, the whispers, the imagined echoes of his parents screaming.
They're right to fear you.You are the Hollow.
He gasped, head spinning. Panic became instinct. The quirk responded. The shadows surged at the edges of his mind.
He bolted.
Midnight shouted, voice echoing off the steel and concrete:
"Stop! Amano Hikaru! Don't make this worse for yourself!"
But he didn't hear her anymore. The world became a blur of fear and motion. Every corner, every wall, every shadow seemed alive, urging him onward.
He ran through the construction site, slipping over debris, crashing through loose boards, heart hammering, lungs burning.
The voices inside grew louder as he ran:
Run… run… run…You can't escape us…You are the Hollow…
By the time he cleared the scaffolding and reached the street beyond, he was trembling, soaked in sweat and rain, and panting so hard he could barely see straight.
He didn't stop until he ducked into the shadows of an alley several blocks away.
The city swallowed him, a maze of streets and darkness.
And for a brief moment, the whispers quieted.
But only briefly.
Meanwhile, in the construction site, Midnight straightened, arms crossed. She stared at the darkened exit Hikaru had vanished into, a chill running down her spine.
"Confirmed sighting," she said into her communicator, voice tight. "Twelve-year-old male, Amano Hikaru. Blood-soaked, fleeing from a construction site in sector seven. Extremely dangerous. Not sure what his quirk is—possibly unstable. Proceed with caution. Backup units, eyes open. Do not underestimate him."
Her gaze lingered on the alley he had disappeared into. She didn't move. She didn't relax.
This wasn't over.
Not by far.