Perched behind a rust-stained water tank, The number 3 in Japan hero ranking, the Wing Hero: Hawks, crouched low, the cool metal humming faintly beneath his boots. A breeze skimmed the rooftop, brushing against his feathers. One of them twitched, then angled down toward the scene unfolding below.
He let out a soft chuckle, the kind that curled at the edges of his mouth but didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Well well well... I heard so many dangerous things."
His grin widened a fraction. "Lucky? Unlucky? Hard to say, But my gut was right again."
"That purple mist guy… I knew something was off about him the moment I spotted him appearing and disappearing across the city, I thought he might've caused the quirk incident." His expression sharpened. "But looks like he and that… palm-faced gremlin are playing with stakes a lot bigger than I imagined."
A few red feathers fanned out behind him, as if listening.
"Villain League...are the villains uniting? and that zombie like kid is the leader? they even knows about All Might's injury. They're talking about targeting him… and that kid mentioned something about a 'master.'" He clicked his tongue softly. "So who the hell is pulling their strings? And how does he know about All Might's condition? That's top-shelf classified."
A distant explosion's aftershock brushed up the building in a rattling tremor.
"And the Shie Hassaikai boss showing up at the same time…" Hawks narrowed his eyes.
"Overhaul's sniffing around the source too...the question is why? why he is interested?"
His wings flexed, feathers glinting like small blades.
"Oi, oi… This is turning into a headache. I came here to investigate one incident. One! Now I'm drowning in side quests that feel like they're about to become the main plot of my life!"
The noise below swelled, shouts, the wet slap of sludge shifting, the rising panic of civilians pressing against the outer barricade.
Hawks' gaze snapped downward as the villain wrapped a tendril around a blond boy, hoisting him like prey.
"All right, No more thinking, Time to clean this up."
He leaned forward, wings tensing.
He planned to dive, snatch the blond kid out of the sludge villain's grip, and be gone before anyone realized he was ever here.
But something changed.
Halfway into his dive, Hawks abruptly halted. His wings flared out, His eyes locked on the barrier line, where two boys had just slipped through the gap and sprinted straight toward the villain.
"What are you two doing…?" His voice dropped into a dangerous whisper.
A crack of air split the scene, a whip of sludge lashed out. Hawks sucked in a breath as the black haired boy in the back lunged forward without a second thought, hurling himself between the attack and his 'friend'.
The impact launched him like a broken doll, his body tumbling across the concrete with a hollow thud.
Hawks felt his stomach tighten.
Yet the green-haired boy didn't stop. Even after that moment of frozen shock, he pushed forward, screaming something hoarse and desperate, sprinting toward certain death.
"Stupid kids!" Hawks cursed, wings snapping downward. With one powerful thrust, he shot into the air like a bullet.
Then he froze.
It happened in the space of a heartbeat.
The sludge villain's body rippled, its murky green surface suddenly darkening, as if swallowed by ink. The blackness crawled over it, coiling, solidifying, then...
BOOM!
Shards of blackened sludge burst outward in every direction.
"Nani…?"
Hawks' composure shattered. His wings faltered for an instant, feathers fluttering wildly as he nearly dropped out of the sky. He caught himself, beating his wings hard, but his mind raced.
"what the hell just happened…?"
A flash of black crossed his memory.
The boy, The one is now leaning injured by the shop sign,
'His right arm… wasn't it coated in the same black substance that covered the villain?'
Hawks' pupils sharpened to eagle points as he scanned the boy.
The boy slumped against the bent shop sign, a faint grin on his lips, an expression halfway between pride and collapse. And just before his knees buckled, Hawks caught the glimmer of that same shadowy power retreating from his skin.
"What a dangerous power!"
for the first time Hawks felt the cold prickle of unease crawl down the back of his neck.
...
Meanwhile, on the high rooftop, Shigaraki crouched forward, elbows on his knees, binoculars pressed against his face.
At first, he was grinning.
Then the grin froze.
He watched his preferred and potential villain league member turn from a dangerous mass of sludge into tiny, inert bits of mud that splattered across the pavement.
Cheers rose from the barricades, Civilians clapped and shouted in relief.
Heroes who moments ago stood helpless sprang into motion, barking orders, securing the area, cleaning up the chaos, The schoolboy was saved.
The sudden, swift defeat of the villain felt like a physical slap to Shigaraki's face.
The black-haired boy leaning against the sign, the one with the ominous darkness around his arm, had flipped the entire situation in an instant.
Shigaraki's teeth clicked together.
"…Again," he whispered.
He didn't realize his hand had risen to his neck until he felt the skin peel beneath his nails. Dust-like flakes drifted to his collar but He didn't stop.
He was filled with white-hot dissatisfaction. He hated this ending. He hated the easy triumph of the 'good guys.'
"Nah, Kurogiri, why is it always like this?" he whined, his voice thick with injustice. "Why, just when the villains are about to win, does some stupid, unbelievable bullshit happen to flip the tables?"
His scratching grew harsher.
"This is unfair! This game is totally unfair! And I'm sick of it!"
Kurogiri's smoky form wavered beside him.
"Calm yourself, Shigaraki-san."
he said calmly, as though soothing a child in the middle of a tantrum.
" Observe closely, The heroes were entirely useless. The victory was entirely due to that civilian boy's Quirk. It was not a hero who won, but a teenager. He is injured, and the heroes had to rely on a civilian to clean up their mess. This is a profound embarrassment for the hero society."
Kurogiri paused, his yellow eyes focusing. "But Shigaraki... do you not find the nature of that boy's Quirk... quite familiar to your own?"
Shigaraki stopped scratching and immediately snatched up his binoculars, aiming them at the black-haired boy, Adam, who was slumping unconscious .
"That color… that feeling… it's destruction," he murmured. "A power fitting for our side."
A grin crept back up his face, slower this time, twisted and gleaming with terrible delight.
"Kurogiri, I've decided. We're going to take him. Right here. In front of all these heroes. He saved the day, wiped the heroes' asses, but they couldn't protect him from being snatched. That will be a perfect headline. The very citizens they claim to protect will despise them."
"Shigaraki-san," Kurogiri said cautiously. "He displayed heroic intent. I do not believe he will willingly join us."
"Who said I want him to join us?" Shigaraki sneered. "I know for sure he can't be 'tamed' with such a righteous heart. I will simply give him to Sensei. Sensei will be extremely interested in that Quirk. We can transfer it to a more loyal member of the League, Oh, and grab that utterly useless sewage villain, too. He's a good pawn for lower jobs."
Kurogiri gave a slow, misty nod. He began to shimmer, preparing to open a warp gate, when both villains noticed a second, sudden change in the scene below.
...
Hawks was intensely focused on the black-haired boy, Adam. He had noted the destructive power, but his attention was abruptly pulled back to the chilling vocal feed coming from the feather he had placed near the two villains.
Hawks processed the last exchange.
"...I will simply give him to Sensei. Sensei will be extremely interested in that Quirk. We can transfer it to a more loyal member..."
Hawks' head snapped up toward the villains. His sharp golden pupils constricted in sudden fright as the full gravity of the information hit him.
"…Quirk transfer… Their master can strip and transfer quirks…?" Hawks whispered, horrified, a certain existence with the same power, considered as myth by many, but as some one working in the Hero Public Safety Commission, know he is real.
"but according to what i know, AllMight had killed him in the fight that broke few years ago? is the HPSC hiding something?"
"is he what this newly formed League of Villains are going to rely on to destroy the symbol of peace and plunge society into chaos."
"League of Villains... you are far more dangerous than I thought."
He quickly retreated deeper into the deep, cooling shadow of the water tank. The immediate situation below, the sludge villain, had been solved. His new, urgent priority was tracking the greater threat.
"This changes everything."
Hawks closed his eyes, focusing his senses. He manipulated the feather he had already placed near the Warp Gate user. He concentrated, guiding the tiny piece of crimson until it gently and quietly shifted, sticking firmly to the back of the cold, metal brace on Kurogiri's neck.
"In this way, I'll know track their location. I have to hurry though, before they discover the feather. I must avoid showing myself or using my main Quirk around them so they can't associate the feather tracker with the Number Three Hero."
He took a deep breath, the casual cynicism replaced by cold, hard resolve.
"I just pray they are too arrogant to care about the number three hero, or else once they find the feather, they will be alarmed."