Tatooing shopping district.
The shopping district had always been a spotless, well-kept stretch of cafés, bookstores, and clothing shops. By mid-afternoon, the air usually smelled of roasted coffee beans and fresh pastries drifting from bakeries lined along the street. Children played around the fountain in the plaza. Elderly couples strolled beneath the awnings, taking shade from the sun.
That peaceful image had been smashed in an instant.
Flames crawled across the storefronts, feeding on shattered signs and melting advertisement boards. The air carried the sharp smell of burning plastic, mixed with the metallic tang of broken wiring.
People ran in every direction once the fire spread past the initial blast. Some screamed for loved ones, others clutched the bags they had dropped. A few tripped over fallen debris, scrambling back up with wild, panicked breaths.
The explosions that kept erupting shook the windows along the upper floors, sending glass raining down in glittering arcs.
The police had already set up a barricade at the main entrance of the district. Officers tried to push the crowd back, shouting for distance, but curiosity kept dragging people closer again. The presence of pro heroes seemed to give them an irrational sense of safety, as if standing a few dozen meters behind police tape made them immune to whatever horror was unfolding inside.
"Are we safe here?"
"Probably. There are pros inside."
"Yeah, heroes can't let something big happen in front of this many people."
"Man… look at that! I've never seen a villain like this before."
"Record everything! It might go viral."
Even with smoke stinging their eyes and heat washing over them in waves, many refused to step back.
Morbid curiosity held them in place.
An elderly man muttered under his breath, "This is why cities fall, Everyone watches first… then regrets."
Behind him, a younger girl whispered, trembling as she held her phone, "They'll save him, right? The boy? They have to…"
Beyond the barricade, the heroes moved with urgency but frustration.
Death Arms stood at the front, muscles tensed, eyes locked on the villain, but there was nothing his strength could do against a creature made entirely of shifting sludge.
His fists clenched and unclenched repeatedly, He thought :
'If I only Have more power, Enough to blast him away...'
Kamui Woods' quirk was restrained by the fire.
Backdraft fought the flames inch by inch, trying to prevent the fire from expanding.
Slugger tried to look for openings, but nothing presented itself.
Mt. Lady had no room to act without leveling half the street.
They weren't useless, just mismatched to the situation.
Katsuki Bakugo was rarely quiet, but now his growls were strained. His chest heaved as he struggled, muscles shaking violently.
The sludge wrapped around him like wet concrete. Only his face remained exposed, twisted with fury and something he refused to acknowledge: fear.
"LET… GO… OF ME!!!" he snarled.
"AHHH— I won't let A sewage swallow me! You— you little—!"
BOOOOM!
Bakugo triggered another violent blast. The shockwave rippled outward, forcing the nearby heroes to brace themselves as dust and sparks filled the air.
The villain's body shuddered but didn't disperse. Instead, he let out a gurgling laugh, his muddy form tightening around Bakugo.
"Heh… heh… What power." His grin stretched unnaturally, ripples traveling across his liquefied face. "I hit the jackpot. With this kid's strength… I can finally get my revenge on that guy!"
Onlookers flinched as windows shattered and pieces of debris crashed onto the street. Some screamed, others froze. A few, out of sheer panic, kept shouting toward the heroes as if volume alone could help.
"Why aren't they doing anything?!"
"Somebody stop that thing!"
Death Arms wiped the dust off his forehead, jaw clenched.
"It's no use!" he shouted, frustration cracking through his voice. "None of us have the right quirk to deal with this type of villain!"
Kamui Woods grimaced, branching off a burning storefront to pull a trapped civilian out of danger. Backdraft fought the spreading flames, cursing under his breath. Mt. Lady stared helplessly, unable to move closer without crushing someone.
"All we can do is hold the damage back until someone with a suitable quirk gets here!" Death Arms barked.
"Everyone, focus on crowd control!"
The crowd murmured anxiously, torn between disbelief and fear as the flames roared higher and Bakugo's explosions shook the ground again.
...
The closer Adam came to the shopping district, the more the world shifted. The quiet beach behind him felt like something he had dreamt an hour ago, not a place he had been standing in minutes earlier.
Here, here everything was noise and heat and fear.
Here, every sound was sharp.
Here, the air tasted of smoke.
He turned the final corner...
and the scene inside the shopping district slammed into him so hard it stole the air from his lungs.
Chaos!!!
It was not the glossy, sanitized animation of chaos one watched from the safety of a screen. This was the true, grimy, sickening reality of it.
Smoke rose in thick, rolling columns, swallowing the sky.
Flames danced behind crumbling storefronts, their shadows stretching like clawed hands.
People clutched their children, Some cried, Some screamed. Some simply stared with hollow eyes, as if their minds had not yet caught up.
BOOOMM
Then a sudden explosion tore through the street, a detonation sharp and sudden enough that Adam's heart lurched violently, battering itself against the cage of his ribs.
A shiver crawled up his spine.
And towering above everything, above the fear, above the voices, above the ruin...Yet Standing helplessly.
was Mt. Lady.
Her size didn't look fun or sexy or awe-inspiring from this close, Her heel dug into the asphalt, cracking it open like brittle bone.
Each breath she exhaled fogged the air around her.
She shifted her weight slightly, just slightly, and Adam jumped back, heart bursting.
Not out of lust, instead Out of the instinctive terror of someone realizing how small their life truly was.
She could end him by accident, Not even noticing he was there.
He swallowed, throat gritty.
'This… this isn't what i expected at all!'
He stopped at the last row of onlookers, the crowd forming a trembling half circle at the entrance of the shopping district.
They whispered, pointed, muttered frantic Japanese words he couldn't understand, but the only thing he understood is the word, Hero.
They are encouraging the heroes to defeat the villain, to save the hostage.
Heroes tried to push forward.
a muscular man in blue, attempted to rush toward the burning center, but a tendril of sludge shot out from the smoke, whipping him into a brick wall like a baseball, The impact echoed in Adam's bones.
Adam felt the blood drain from his face.
'Ya Latif! If that thing hit me… if it touched me even once… with my biscuit like body, my skull would crack like an egg.'
Adam Eyes started wide open at this scene, that seemed normal and boring in anime, but in real life, it could end his life.
Instant death!
He felt a sudden, profound weakness in his legs, a tremor that had nothing to do with exhaustion and everything to do with imminent death.
'This isn't what I imagined, This isn't cool! This is dangerous, Too dangerous!!!! I can't Approach the villain, I can't get close, there is fire everywhere, and the villain had long rang attacks, Explodo-asshole firing one blast after another, How am i supposed to get close enough to launch my negation power!!! I give up! Better Leave it to Midorya and AllMight.'
'I should go back. Obviously This is not cowardice, this is intelligence, God gave me a brain, I should use it. Who throws their life away for free? Not me. Not the wise and strategic me, Adam Al Hantakour-sama!'
'All Might isn't going anywhere, there would be other chances. There were a hundred ways to build a future in this world, first i need to train my negation ability, to develop some defensive technique before doing anything stupid.'
He repeated those excuses in his head like a prayer.
'It's not worthy it, I'm not prepared mentally or physically for this kind of things, I had never fought someone in my entire life and now want me to fight a scary villain like this? I should just Let the story unfold the way it's supposed to. Bakugo will be saved, Midorya will save him, All Might will show up. I can impress him another way.'
Adam's gaze, drawn by a magnetic, terrifying certainty, shifted only slightly to the right.
There, hunched and trembling beside a light pole, stood a man. He was tall but frighteningly gaunt.
his blond hair lank, his clothes loose on a skeletal frame. He was clutching his chest with white-knuckled intensity. Each breath rattled, scraping like sandpaper. as though every inhale was a desperate, losing battle against his own failing body.
That's the symbol of Peace he wanted to impress, The powerful and strongest Hero he was hoping to get his favor.
due to his heavy injuries, he could only sustain his muscular and powerful form for few hours a day...and the time had already been used up.
'Allmight...You can do it, please go PLUS ULTRA, I'll leave it to you! Gambari Allmightooo!'
as if finding a source of comfort, a good excuse, adam felt the weight on him lessen, Without noticing, he took a step backward.
The ground felt steady behind him, safe, familiar. The idea of retreat wrapped around him like a warm blanket.
Next to Adam stood a teenager in a black school uniform, soaked notebook clutched to his chest. The cover was burnt, pages curled and wet. His green hair was messy, his freckles stark against his pale face. He kept covering his mouth with one hand, eyes wide, whispering, trembling.
Izuku Midoriya.
The kid looked like he'd been split open from the inside, His gaze was locked on the villain.
People were shouting
"Isn't this the villain who was chased by AllMight?"
"Huh? Allmight? where?"
"Where is he?! Why isn't he saving him?!"
Each mention of the name made Midoriya flinch like he'd been stabbed. He hugged the ruined notebook harder, fingers shaking.
Adam noticed it, the guilt on his face, The kind that crushes a person.
'deku...That's definitely your fault, go fix it, go save your 'best friend' and show your heroic spirit to your idol, please go and save me from this torture!' Adam thought as He kept backing up.