'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.
suddenly he stopped, something deep inside him recoiled.
It wasn't dramatic, It wasn't a burst of courage, It was small at first, like a knot tightening in the back of his chest, refusing to loosen. As if the next one step he will take will crosse an invisible line he isn't supposed to cross.
His body froze.
His breath caught halfway in.
His heart pulled against his ribs like it didn't agree with the rest of him.
'Why can't I move? Why can't I just turn around and walk away? you fool! this isn't time to be emotional!!!'
He tried to take another step.
His leg wouldn't lift.
There was something inside him resisting him, not heroism, not duty, not some noble instinct he didn't own. It was something more primitive, more personal. Something that had nothing to do with Bakugo or All Might or the system waiting for him to complete the mission.
It was unwillingness.
A raw, stubborn refusal that dug into his bones and held him in place.
He wasn't unwilling to abandon the fight.
He was unwilling to remain him.
The same Adam who always waited.
The Adam who avoided risk.
The Adam who hid behind logic and fear and called it wisdom and caution.
If he left now, he knew exactly what kind of person he would continue to be. The kind who waited for "the right moment" forever. The kind who never took the first step. The kind who lived with the bitter taste of 'almost'.
That truth pressed into him like a hand on the back of his neck.
He wasn't scared of the villain in front of him anymore.
He was terrified of the man he'd be if he ran.
Adam's eyes unconsciously landed on Midoriya.
The green-haired boy was trembling hard now. His breathing fast, eyes wet, guilt and fear swirling in them like a storm.
Adam watched him, watched how he shook, how small he looked.
He is more terrified than him, he is without a superpower, he is fragile like him, coward, filled with delusional dreams to be a hero, but reality is harsher than they expected.
And then...
Midoriya's foot stepped forward.
Just one step.
Time seemed to slow down in Adam's perspective as he saw this scene.
The notebook slipped from Midoriya' fingers and hit the ground with a wet slap.
Midoriya ran.
Ran straight into the flames, Into the smoke, Into the monster holding his childhood 'friend' hostage.
Ran with tears streaking down his face, with snot dripping from his nose, looking nothing like a hero.
And yet more like one than anyone else here.
Adam couldn't breathe.
This was the kid he pitied, The quirkless one, The one he told himself he was better than. The one he believed he would surpass, with his cheat, his system, his negation power.
But that kid had moved.
Without power.
Without hope.
Without thinking.
He moved because someone needed help.
'…and I—'
Adam's heart squeezed painfully.
'I was going to run away...'
Midoriya's screams mixed with the fire as he threw himself at the villain with nothing but his body and desperation.
Something cracked inside Adam.
Something old, Something he'd buried under excuses.
A hero isn't about flashy costumes, cool superpowers, It's about stepping forward Even when you're shaking, Even when you know you might die.
Adam's hands curled into fists.
He felt his pulse pound like war drums, Felt shame burn hotter than the flames ahead, Felt a truth he had always run from shove itself into his chest:
'If I run now… I will always run. If I hide now… I will always hide. If I wait for change… I will never change.'
Adam's vision blurred. His breath shook.
'MOVE, YOU IDIOT, MOVE!'
'IF YOU DON'T MOVE NOW, FORGET ABOUT EVER GOING HOME.
STAY A COWARD FOREVER. STAY MEDIOCRE UNTIL YOU ROT.
MOVE, ADAM! MOVE!'
His legs trembled.
Fueled By the Desire to Change, they moved.
He tore forward through the crowd.
People, Cops, Heroes, All shouted behind Them...
"HEY! STOP!"
"KIDS, ARE YOU CRAZY?!"
"COME BACK!!"
"IDIOTS! STOOP! STOOOP!"
"THIS IS SUICIDAL!"
Their voices reached him like echoes behind a locked door.
He wasn't running to save Bakugo.
He wasn't running to impress All Might.
He wasn't running to show off.
He was running for one reason:
To prove to himself that he wasn't a coward, To Prove to Himself That He can Change.
Adam did the only thing he could do...
He screamed at the top of his lungs:
"LA ILLAHA ILLA ALLAH!" (There Is No God Except Allah)
If death waited for him ahead, then he'd die a martyr, straight to paradise, and knowing he finally chose to be more than what he was.
Two figures broke free from the cage of fear at the same time.
One quirkless boy, and one terrified muslim boy from another world.
Racing one behind the other toward death, toward change, toward the moment that would carve who they truly were.
Adam ran.
He ran like this was the first decision he'd ever made in his life.
And maybe...Maybe it was.
The moment he began running, everything sharpened, the smell of burning plastic, the chaotic shouts, the heat radiating off the pavement, the wet suction sound of the sludge villain shifting. The world became painfully real.
Midoriya In front of him didn't notice his presence, He wasn't thinking anymore, he was moving in autopilot.
His eyes were wide, glassy, locked onto the sight of Bakugo thrashing inside the mass of sludge.
Everything else, heat, screams, smoke, blurred into a dull roar behind him. His feet pounded the pavement in frantic, uneven steps, as if his body had decided long before his brain caught up.
Adam followed only a few steps behind, hearing fragments of Midoriya's muttering tumble out in rushed breaths. Adam didn't understand the words, but the meaning was obvious:
Why am I doing this? Why can't I stop? Why am I running straight toward death?
Fear twisted Midoriya's face, yet his arms kept reaching forward, toward Bakugo, toward danger, toward something he had no right to challenge, Toward the future he always wanted, to be the hero he always dreamed, just like his idol, to save people with a smile.
Up ahead, the villain noticed the two boys charging through the smoke, one is crying, the other is terrified. A wave of irritation rippled through his muddy form.
"One after another…" his voice gurgled, thick with contempt. "You brats... Try being heroes in your next life!"
Inside the sludge, Bakugo's fading consciousness flickered.
"D-DEKU--!?"
His lungs burned inside the sludge, every breath shallow and useless. For a moment he thought he was hallucinating, there was no way that nerd, that coward will be charging toward death .
But Midoriya kept coming. Arms outstretched. Tears streaking through the smoke.
Bakugo forced his swollen eyes open wider.
No… that's real!
The boy he spent years pushing down… the one he mocked, shoved, belittled, telling him he would never be a hero, was the only one running toward him, when even professional heroes just kept watching and waiting.
Deku?
The Quirkless one, trying to save him?
His heart kicked once, painfully.
And then he saw the other kid, someone he didn't recognize, right behind Midoriya.
Same age, same terrified determination in his eyes. He wasn't screaming or crying, He wasn't hesitating.
He was just running, like he'd already decided how his life going to end.
Two nobodies charging into a monster.
Bakugo felt a tiny breath escape his chest. Not a laugh. Not a sob. Something stuck between disbelief and shame.
'DEKU!!! Why you? Why now? Why are you the only idiot moving when everyone else won't…?' Bakugo Felt this is the biggest joke fate had played him since he was born.
The villain drew back a massive tendril, condensing it into a jagged whip of sludge.
"DIE!"
The tendril cracked through the air.
"COME BACK!!!"
"STOP!!!"
"DAMN IT!"
The heroes shouted behind them in warnings.
Midoriya's brain recalled his scribbled notes, the memorized tactics he analyzed for his future hero work, flashed through his mind.
He fumbled for his backpack, ready to throw it and create an opening.
But Adam didn't want the distraction.
This was his chance, His only chance to touch the villain.
And he wasn't letting it slip.
"TATAKAI!!!" he roared, the one Japanese word he knew that felt right, fight!
Adam surged forward with everything he had, His lungs burned, His legs screamed.
He lowered his shoulder and slammed himself between Midoriya and the incoming strike.
Midoriya was forced to a stop in pure shock. His brain stalled as His perfect plan was shattered by this unknown boy who appeared all of sudden.
The Sludge whip slammed into Adam's hands, it was aiming for his head, but fortunately adam raised his hands in time to defend against this deadly attack.
The sound of the impact was awful, like a waterlogged rope slamming into splintering wood.
Pain detonated instantly, His skin split open, Flesh tore. His right arm bent at an angle no joint was meant to endure.
He felt the bone give in, first a sharp crack, then a sickening collapse inward.
A wave of heat and pressure crushed his ribs as the impact launched him backward.
He hit the ground shoulder-first, rolled, skidded across asphalt that scraped layers of skin off his neck, shoulders, back, Hands, and only stopped when his back slammed against a fallen sign.
The world pulsed in and out of focus, the background noise around him warped.
Adam tried to breathe, The attempt came out as a ragged hiss.
And still...he grinned.
It wasn't because of joy, It was adrenaline ripping through him like electricity, the raw, animal instinct to survive clashing with the equally raw thrill of nearly dying.
Terror and exhilaration braided together until he couldn't tell which was which.
His right hand, mangled, trembling, still coated in the in inky darkness of negation power, pointed a finger like a gun toward the villain, Fingers barely obeyed him.
His vision narrowed to a blurry tunnel around the sludge creature.
He forced breath through his teeth.
"Negate."
The word left him like a final exhale.
The effect hit him immediately, His body hollowed out, as if something inside was being scooped away by invisible hands.
His muscles weakened, His pulse stuttered, Darkness crept in from the edges of his vision.
He fought to keep his eyes open.
he had to see it. If this was it, if this was the end, he wanted proof that he had done something that mattered, at least to die in peace.
At first, nothing happened.
Nothing except Midoriya sprinting ahead, exploiting the tiny gap that Adam, the unknown boy who sacrificed his life to create it.
Nothing except the villain shifting to strike again.
Nothing except the heroes shouting and running toward Adam's crumpled body.
Then the villain froze.
There was no cool visual effects, no colorful bright light, nor any explosion.
It was something far more unnerving, Quite and deadly ink-black darkness threading through the villain's mud-like form, as though the sludge was being stained from within. The darkness crawled across every inch of his body, skipping cleanly around Bakugo.
"W–Wha—"
He never finished as His form convulsed inward. Then...
BANG!!!
ruptured.
Not in an explosion, more like brittle clay shattering under internal pressure. Chunks of sludge broke apart in dozens of fragments, splattering across the street.
Adam Negated the villain's cohesive sludge body, preventing it from clumping together.
Bakugo fell with a grunt as Midoriya dove forward, catching him awkwardly. They crashed onto scorched pavement, coughing violently from smoke and heat.
Unwilling to look Weak, the prideful Bakugo shoved Midorya away the moment he could breathe.
"D-Deku—! Who the hell is that guy!?"
His voice cracked with shame and fury. He hated the image of being saved. saved by Deku of all people, and by some stranger his own age who did what he couldn't.
Midoriya wiped soot and tears from his eyes, panting. "K-Kacchan… T-Thanks God you're alright… Th-That boy, I don't know. He just...he just appeared…"
Both boys turned toward Adam.
He lay slumped against the fallen sign, eyes half-open, dried blood running down his arms, chest rising in shallow breaths. But he was smiling...softly, faintly, as if relieved.
'Now I can die in peace' he thought as his eyes closed forcibly.
For a moment, everything froze.
Fire crackled, Smoke drifted, Sludge fragments slid across the pavement trying to condense back.
But no one moved, Not the heroes. Not the police. Not the crowd packed behind the barricades.
Everyone stared at the unconscious boy leaning against a fallen sign, arms torn open, bones bent, right hand coated in a blackness that slowly seems to be receding and fading away.
The first voice to return to life was Death Arms'.
"Kamui! Get those kids out of there now!"
"Alright!"
Kamui Woods' branches shot across the burning street, wrapping around Midoriya and Bakugo.
The two boys were yanked away from the flames, coughing violently as they were pulled to safety.
"Medical team!" Death Arms shouted again, pointing toward Adam. "Recue The Injured boy on the ground, Backdraft, pave the way for them!"
The order snapped everyone back into motion.
Backdraft immediately started using his quirk, sprouting water and pushing the flames aside so the medics could rush in with their stretchers and equipment.
"What a damn shame…" he muttered under his breath, voice cracking with guilt. "We're supposed to be the ones saving people… and yet we relied on kids to do our job."
Mt. Lady stood nearby, frozen in place, her massive frame shrinking as she unconsciously disactivated her quirk.
'AH! My debut… completely ruined! I just stood here, I couldn't even approach. meanwhile A brat dove in while I watched. I can imagine the headlines and the critics of people online.'
Her eyes drifted to Adam's blackened hand.
'But what is that quirk…? It feels menacing.'
Death Arms let out a long, shaky exhale, rubbing soot from his face.
"Still," he whispered, "I'd rather owe my pride to a kid than live knowing an innocent boy died right in front of me."
He glanced again at Adam.
"His quirk… It's impressive And frightening."
Behind the police line, the onlookers erupted into frantic chatter. Everyone was talking at once.
"Oi, did you see that?! The sludge villain just, just blew apart!"
"That black thing on his arm, what kind of quirk is that!?"
"Maybe he can make anything he touches explode?"
"Yabai, He is heavily injured!"
Phones were raised, Cameras clicked, People leaned over the barricade, trying to get a better view of the injured boy who defeated the difficult villain with his eerie power.
And behind them, quiet, almost hidden, stood All Might.
All Might's throat tightened.
The words he told Midoriya minutes earlier echoed back with a sting.
"you can't become a hero without a quirk."
Now those same words felt like shackles around his chest.
Because he didn't see weakness here.
He didn't see helplessness.
He saw courage, pure, unfiltered, reckless courage.
Courage that surpassed the trained heroes who hesitated.
Courage that surpassed even him.
Courage that inspired others to take action.
"That boy…" All Might whispered, voice trembling.
"His spirit is more heroic than anyone here…"
His gaze shifted to Adam's blackened hand, then narrowed.
"That shonen's power… that darkness…"
"It feels… familiar."
He racked his brain, and recalled that fleeting black light he saw few hours ago, the black light he suspect behind the quirk disappearance incident that shock the whole city and even the whole Japan.
"No! It can't Be...Impossible..."
He thought of a possibility And it terrified him.