Location: Tokyo Sky Egg – Main Arena
OOHHHHHHH.
The sound from a hundred thousand throats was hitting the steel supports of the Sky Egg. Inside the dome, the atmosphere was a thick, electric haze of heat, expensive perfume, and the sharp, biting scent of pyrotechnic smoke.
Below, a sea of amber "Pulse" sticks ebbed and flowed, turning the darkened stadium floor into a churning ocean of liquid gold.
"YEAAAAAH! ARE YOU FEELING THE VIBRATION, TOKYO?!"
Present Mic's voice exploded through the line-array speakers, amplified until it rattled the teeth of every person in the front row.
He stood on the center ego-riser, his leather jacket gleaming under a dozen white spotlights.
Beside him, Ms. Joke grabbed a secondary mic, her grin wide and infectious as she leaned over the stage edge. "If you aren't shaking, you're either a statue or you're at the wrong stadium! Let's see those hands!"
BAM. BAM. BAM.
Three pillars of violet fire shot up from the stage floor.
The show had opened with a whirlwind. The Sisters of Saint Lila's Academy had provided a haunting, choral backbone from the upper risers, their white robes glowing like ghosts under the blacklights.
Then, Miu and Yu (The Feathers) had plummeted from the rafters on shimmering silks, spinning through the air with death-defying speed before snapping back up into the darkness.
Harusaburo Nanboku followed, a blur of traditional crimson silk and snapping fans that merged ancient dance with the heavy, driving beat of the Mad Hatters in the pit.
But then, the lights went pitch black.
A heavy, distorted bass line began to growl, vibrating the floorboards.
VROOOOM.
A single, blinding gold spotlight hit the center hydraulic lift.
Koichi, Rapt, and Moyuru exploded onto the stage, their movements a high-speed blur of slides and spins.
Koichi led the formation, his feet barely touching the ground as he used his Slide and Glide quirk to bank off the ego-risers, his voice joining the others in a soaring harmony.
"Everybody put your hands up! Saa flyin' tsubasa ni nare!"
(Everybody put your hands up! Flyin', become the wings!)
The crowd went into a frenzy as the "Flyers" melody filled the arena.
Then, the center of the stage erupted.
Kazuho (Pop★Step) rose through a cloud of white smoke, her armored indigo suit gleaming.
Beside her, Tamao struck a power chord on her black guitar that sounded like a thunderclap.
WREEEEEEEE!
Kazuho grabbed the mic, her face flushed with raw, high-octane energy.
She wasn't just singing; she was commanding the stadium.
"Sore demo yuku yo! Tooku e ike, tooku e ike to!!"
(Even so, I'll keep going! Go further, go further!!)
They transitioned seamlessly into "Peace Sign." Kazuho's gritty, powerful vocals layered over Koichi's fast-paced backing chants.
Tamao was a storm of motion, her long hair whipping as she tore through a guitar solo, while Soga in the back hammered the drums with enough force to break the snare.
CRACK. BASH. CRASH.
_-_-_-_-_-_
Location: General Admission – Section B
"MIRIO! STOP JUMPING, YOU'RE GOING TO FALL OVER THE SEAT!"
Tamaki Amajiki was white-knuckled, his hands gripping the railing in front of him.
His hood was down, his face flushed. Even with the noise-canceling plugs he'd tried to use, the bass was vibrating through his very marrow.
"I CAN'T HELP IT, TAMAKI!" Mirio Togata roared back, his face split by a massive, ecstatic grin. He was drenched in sweat, his arms pumping the air as he chanted along with Kazuho. "IT'S THE ENERGY! DO YOU FEEL THAT? IT'S LIKE THE AIR IS ALIVE!"
"It's... it's amazing," Tamaki shouted back, finally letting go of the rail to tap his fingers against his knees.
He looked at Koichi sliding across the stage and his eyes widened. "Look at his footwork! He's not even losing momentum!"
_-_-_-_-_-_-_
Location: East Balcony
A few hundred yards away, Nejire Hado was practically vibrating in place, her hair swirling around her as she leaned over the balcony railing.
"Why is the stage glowing like that? Is it a light reaction or his quirk? Koichi-kun is so fast! Kazuho-chan's voice is making my skin tingle! Is it a frequency thing? I want to know! I want to know everything!"
She was jumping in place, her hands glowing with faint, accidental sparks of her quirk as she cheered. "GO! POP★STEP! GOOOOOO!"
_-_-_-_-_-_-_
Location: VIP Box
Inside the soundproofed glass of the VIP box, the roar was a low, powerful thrum that made the champagne in the glasses ripple.
"Oh, look at them! Mother, look! Kazuho-san looks so beautiful!" Momo Yaoyorozu gasped. Her usual formal composure was completely gone, replaced by a bright, girlish excitement.
She was clapping her hands, her eyes fixed on Tamao's guitar solo. "And the way Koichi-san coordinates with the backup dancers... it's perfect! It's like they're all one person!"
Momo's mother smiled, sipping her drink. "It is a wonderful show, Momo. I'm glad you asked to come."
Across the room, the Arisaka-Haimawari clan was a riot of its own. Shoko Haimawari was leaning against the glass, her face practically pressed to it.
"MY KOICHI! LOOK AT HIM!" Shoko wailed, her pride loud enough to be heard over the muffled music. "He's dancing! He's actually dancing in front of all these people! Kenji-san, did you see that flip?! He didn't even fall!"
"HAHA!"
Kenji laughed, holding a drink up in a toast toward the stage. "He's a star, Shoko-san! He's got the O'Clock rhythm!"
Kimiko sat on the plush sofa, bouncing Emi on her lap.
The baby was wide awake, her big eyes staring at the flickering gold lights beyond the glass.
She wasn't crying; she seemed fascinated by the shifting colors, her tiny hands reaching out toward the window.
"She loves it," Kimiko whispered, her heart full. "Kaito, she really loves the music."
Kaito stood at the back of the box, his jacket open, his arms crossed.
He wasn't cheering, but a rare, genuine smile touched his lips as he watched his family and his friends.
Kazuho's voice was hitting every note he had drilled into her. Koichi was sliding with the precision they had practiced in the Naruhata alleys.
Kaito nodded, his gaze shifting to Grandma Saki, who sat in the center chair.
She looked at him and offered a small, dignified nod, She was also clearly enjoying the concert.
But then, the air in the room changed.
THUD.
It wasn't a drum beat. It was a dull, heavy impact that seemed to come from the very top of the dome.
Kaito turned his head toward the wall-mounted barometer.
The digital needle was spinning. The air pressure wasn't just dropping; it was collapsing.
CREAK.
The massive glass panels of the VIP box let out a high-pitched, agonizing groan.
Kaito looked up at the glass ceiling. Beyond the bright stage lights and the swirling pyrotechnic smoke, the sky over Tokyo had vanished.
The stars were gone, replaced by a swirling, violet-black vortex that looked like a hole torn in the sky.
BOOM.
A bolt of lightning, thick as a tree and violet as a bruise, struck the Sky Egg's exterior lightning rod.
The stadium flickered. The music slowed for a terrifying half-second as the primary power struggled.
_-_-_-_-_-_
Location: The Sky Above Tokyo
CREAK.
The massive glass ribs of the Sky Egg dome let out a high-pitched, metallic groan.
It started at the apex of the building and traveled down the spine of the tower, a sound of structural stress that cut through the fading echoes of the music.
Outside, the vibrant, neon-soaked skyline of Shinjuku didn't just dim—it was erased.
A massive, swirling vortex of violet-black clouds had formed directly over the stadium, spinning with a violent, unnatural speed.
The stars were gone. The moon was gone. There was only a suffocating, pressurized darkness that seemed to push down on the city.
BOOM.
A single bolt of violet lightning, thick enough to level a city block, tore through the center of the vortex.
It struck the Sky Egg's exterior observation spire, sending a cascade of molten steel and white-hot sparks raining down the side of the building.
Inside the stadium, the effect was instant.
ZAP. flicker.
The massive LED arrays behind the stage glitched into a jagged mess of purple static before dying completely.
The spotlights turned off. The high-end audio system let out a final, agonizing pop before the primary power grid was severed.
The silence that followed was terrifying. 100,000 people stood in total, pitch-black darkness, the only sound being the howling wind whipping through the exterior supports of the high-rise.
WHOOSH.
A figure began to descend through the center of the swirling clouds.
Nine floated through the air, his long hair billowing wildly behind him.
He didn't have a jetpack or wings; he simply hovered, his body surrounded by a shimmering, violet aura of raw energy.
He stopped several hundred feet above the glass dome, looking down at the stadium like a judge looking at a cage of insects.
He didn't need a microphone. He raised his hand, and violet sparks danced between his fingertips as he used his Radio Wave quirk to hijack every battery-powered device, every emergency transceiver, and the very air inside the stadium.
His voice didn't come from the speakers. It echoed directly inside the skulls of every person in the arena, a cold, vibrating resonance that felt like ice.
"The era of 'peace' is a lie built by the weak to protect themselves from the inevitable," Nine said.
There was no emotion in his tone, only a flat, absolute certainty.
"In the world I will create, the strong will rule, and the weak will be cast aside. Power is everything. Without it, you are nothing but dust in the wind."
CRACK-BOOM.
Another bolt of lightning struck the dome, this time spider-webbing the reinforced glass directly above the VIP boxes.
Shards of glass, some the size of daggers, began to rain down onto the mosh pit.
"Is this the best the next generation of heroes can do?" Nine asked, his eyes glowing with a predatory, violet light as he looked at the pro-heroes scrambling on the stage below.
"Pathetic. I have endured agony you couldn't possibly imagine... all for the sake of true freedom."
He raised both hands toward the blackened sky, his fingers curling as if he were grasping the wind itself.
Nine growled, his voice rising in volume until it rivaled the thunder. "I will become a god... and I will rewrite the laws of this world. Today, this tower becomes your monument of failure."
CRACK.
The sound of the structural supports snapping echoed through the arena. Nine wasn't coming inside.
He stayed in the open sky, his Weather Manipulation quirk reaching its peak as he prepared to collapse the entire high-rise from the outside.
A cold, supernatural rain began to pour through the cracked dome, soaking the terrified crowd.
_-_-_-_-_
Location: Tokyo Sky Egg – Interior Arena Floor
VROOOOM.
The air in the center of the mosh pit didn't just ripple; it tore open.
A massive, swirling vortex of dark purple mist erupted directly in the middle of the crowd.
The civilians closest to the anomaly didn't even have time to scream before the first wave of monsters dropped from the void.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
The "Consumables Nomus" hit the floor with the weight of falling boulders.
They were grey-skinned hulks, their musculature bulging to unnatural proportions, with four thick arms ending in jagged claws.
Their brains were exposed, pulsing with a sickly grey light. They didn't roar. They didn't growl.
They simply stood up and began to plow through the crowd with a mechanical, mindless efficiency.
CRACK.
A Nomu swung a backhand that shattered a heavy security railing like it was made of glass, sending three fans flying into the lower seating tiers.
"STAMPEDE! GET TO THE EXITS!" a hero shouted, but his voice was swallowed by a hundred thousand people screaming at once.
The arena floor, once a place of music, became a killing field.
People trampled over seats, falling over one another as they tried to reach the narrow exit tunnels.
"The villains are only dropping them in waves," Aizawa who was in the security command post shouted, clutching his tablet as he looked at the feed. "Thirty creatures are inside!"
Aizawa looked horrified as he watched these creature appeared in dozens. After all he faced on back in Naruhata.
_-_-_-_-_
The Main Stage
CRASH.
A Nomu landed directly on the drum riser, its weight snapping the wooden supports.
It lunged at Kazuho, its four hands reaching out like a pincer.
"GET BACK!" Iwao, O'Clock roared.
THWACK. BANG. BANG. BANG.
He punched the Nomu, countless time in 5 seconds. Sending it meters away.
"MASTER!" Koichi screamed.
He didn't hesitate. He used Slide and Glide to accelerate across the stage, hitting the Nomu with a high-speed shoulder tackle.
BOOM.
The Nomu was knocked back a few feet again, but it quickly dug its claws into the stage floor to stabilize.
On the other side, Soga and Rapt were using their quirks to help the civilians below to escape the disaster.
_-_-_-_-_-_-_
"FORM A PERIMETER! SECURE THE EXIT HATCHES!" Best Jeanist commanded.
He was standing on a suspended lighting rig, his fingers moving like a weaver's as he manipulated the high-tensile fibers of his own suit and the clothes of the surrounding heroes.
"BLACKOUT BIND!"
Dozens of Nomus were suddenly wrapped in tight, restrictive cocoons of denim and carbon-fiber thread.
But these weren't standard villains. The 300% strength boost kicked in.
RIP. SNAP.
Swiiish-wooosh.
The Nomus almost tore through the bindings with raw, physical force. But he added another binding.
"They're too strong for single-hero containment!" Gang Orca roared, unleashing an ultrasonic wave that made the air shimmer.
"ULTRALITHIC SHOCKWAVE!"
The blast hit a Nomu square in the chest, disorienting it, but three more lunged from the shadows.
King Vlad stepped in, slamming his blood-fortified gauntlets into the lead Nomu's head.
"STAY DOWN, YOU FREAK!" Vlad barked, his blood-manipulation quirk hardening the impact into a bone-shattering strike.
Nearby, Endeavor was a pillar of orange fire. He was incinerating Nomus that tried to reach the upper seating tiers.
"FLASHFIRE FIST: JET BURN!"
A beam of concentrated flame punched through a Nomu's chest, cauterizing the wound instantly.
But for every one Endeavor scorched, another took its place.
The pros were being forced into a war of attrition, unable to use their full power for fear of collapsing the stadium floor onto the thousands of people trapped below.
_-_-_-_-_-_-_
Outside, the situation was a nightmare of vertical warfare.
Nine stayed in the sky, a conductor of destruction.
CRACK-BOOM.
He summoned a localized tornado that ripped into the exterior glass supports of the Sky Egg.
Massive shards of reinforced glass, the size of cars, began to rain down on the fleeing crowds in the plaza below.
WHOOSH.
A golden blur and a blue streak of light shot up from the VIP entrance, defying gravity as they scaled the glass dome.
All Might and Captain Celebrity landed on the curved exterior of the dome, thousands of feet above the ground.
The wind was howling at ninety miles per hour, their capes snapping like whips.
"He's staying in the open sky!" All Might shouted, his golden hair windswept.
He looked up at Nine, his eyes burning with a rare, cold fury. "He's using the weather to collapse the building! We have to reach him!"
"I'll hold the dome together!" CC roared. He slammed his hands against the glass, deploying his Aerodynamic Flight-Shield at maximum output.
A shimmering, blue dome of energy expanded over the Sky Egg, catching the falling debris and acting as a lightning rod for Nine's strikes.
"Clear the hull, All Might! Look out!"
Nine didn't even look at them. He simply raised a hand.
THWIP. THWIP. THWIP.
Dozens of Bullet Lasers rained down from the clouds.
The purple beams punched through CC's shield, the energy feedback making the American hero grunt in agony as his skin sizzled.
"Is this the best the symbols of this world can do?" Nine's voice echoed through the thunder, cold and mocking. "Pathetic."
All Might lunged, his feet shattering the glass as he leapt into the air toward Nine.
"CAROLINA... SMASH!"
Nine didn't move. He simply activated his Air Wall.
CLANG.
All Might's fists hit an invisible barrier with the sound of a hammer hitting an anvil.
The shockwave cleared the clouds for a mile, but Nine remained untouched, staring down at the Symbol of Peace with a look of absolute boredom.
The struggle was no longer about winning. It was about surviving the first wave.
_-_-_-_-_-_-_
Location: VIP Box
Time: 15 minutes after the raid.
HISS.
The emergency red lights hummed to life, casting long, bloody shadows against the reinforced glass.
Outside, the world was a nightmare of violet lightning and falling debris.
Kimiko was curled into the corner of the plush sofa, shielding Emi with her own body.
Kenji stood over them, his knuckles white as he gripped a heavy wooden chair, his eyes fixed on the door.
Near the window, Shoko Haimawari was paralyzed, her palms pressed against the glass as she watched the chaos on the stage below.
"The building... it's tilting," Kenji whispered, his voice cracking as the floor shifted another three degrees.
CREAK.
Kaito stood by the door, his hand resting on the handle.
He wasn't looking at the panic. He was staring at the wall, his mind a whirlwind of calculations.
He knew the structural integrity of the Sky Egg; he knew exactly how many supports Nine had to sever before the entire upper tier became a tomb.
Then.
Kaito felt a hand wrap around his wrist.
It wasn't the frantic grip of a victim. It was firm, steady, and dry.
Kaito turned to see Grandma Saki standing beside him.
She wasn't looking at the monsters or the lightning. She was looking at him with a gaze that stripped away the "Golden Manager" suit and persona.
"Grandma, stay away from the glass," Kaito said, his voice dropping into that protective, grounded tone. "I'm not leaving this door. You're safe as long as I'm standing here."
Saki didn't move. She didn't let go. She let out a small, dry scoff that sounded like a challenge.
"Heh, Kaito," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the distant roar of the crowd.
"Stop acting. I've known since the day you came back differently in the Musutafu fire disaster years ago."
"...."
Kaito froze. His heart skipped a beat, a sensation he hadn't felt in years. He looked at her, his eyes wide behind his glasses. "Grandma, what are you—"
"I'm your grandmother," Saki interrupted, her eyes glistening with a mix of pride and fierce resolve. "I raised you. I know the way you stand. I know the way you breathe when you're thinking ten steps ahead. You think a change in hair color and a golden light is enough to fool the woman who changed your diapers? Don't take me for a fool, Kaito."
Kaito's breath caught. He felt like a child caught sneaking out of the house, the weight of the secret he'd carried for years suddenly evaporating under her stare. "You... you knew? All this time?"
"I know my grandson's face and build, even if he dresses gallantly and plays at being a god," Saki said, her voice softening just a fraction.
She reached up and cupped his cheek with her free hand. "I am safe here because you are here. But those people down there... your friends, those children... they don't have an anchor. They're drifting, Kaito."
She looked toward the window, where the sky was a violet bruise.
"Go," she commanded, her voice turning into iron. "Go be the hero they need. I'll keep Shoko-san and the family quiet. I'll tell them you're just checking the hallway. Go."
Kaito looked at her for a long, silent second.
The conflict in his chest—the logic of staying to protect his family versus the duty of the power he held—was finally settled.
He leaned down and pressed a quick, firm kiss to her forehead.
"I won't be long," he whispered.
"You'd better not be," Saki replied, her eyes narrowing in that classic Arisaka way. "Or I'll have words for you when we get home."
Kaito took a slow, deep breath. He focused his mind, the energy within his cells humming in response to his will.
HUMMM.
A "Clone Projection"—a perfect, physical double of Kaito in his civilian clothes—stepped out of the shadows behind him.
It walked over to the sofa and sat down next to Kimiko, offering a calm, reassuring nod that looked exactly like the real thing. To the rest of the room, Kaito hadn't moved.
But the real Kaito slipped through the door, closing it silently behind him.
_-_-_-_-_-_
Location: Maintenance Tunnel 4-B
CLANG. SCREEECH.
The tunnel was a claustrophobic throat of vibrating steel and concrete.
It had been fifteen minutes since attack started, and the air here was thick with the smell of scorched insulation and the copper tang of blood.
The civilians were gone. Rapt, Soga, and Moyuru had successfully funneled the last of the panicked crowd into the external emergency chutes, leaving the maintenance artery silent—except for the sound of heavy breathing and the rhythmic crack-boom of the storm outside.
Makoto Tsukauchi came skidding around the corner, her boots kicking up grit as she sprinted back into the kill zone. She had seen the civilians to the exit and refused to stay behind.
"Iwao! Koichi! Get back!" Makoto screamed, checking her stopwatch.
BAM. BAM. BAM.
In a blur of blue sparks and violent motion, Iwao Oguro (O'Clock) was a ghost of kinetic energy.
He was pushed to his absolute limit, his Overclock quirk forcing his brain to process the world at speeds that turned the falling dust into stationary sculptures.
He hammered a flurry of punches into the grey, bulging chest of a four-armed Nomu, but the creature didn't even grunt.
It was a 300% strength beast, and it didn't care about the speed. It just waited for the opening.
"We just have to hold it!" Koichi shouted, his face drenched in sweat as he banked off the wall with a high-speed slide, narrowly avoiding a claw that would have taken his head off. "Master, the timer!"
Kazuho stood her ground a few yards back, launching concentrated air-blasts to stagger the monster's heavy footwork. "It's been two minutes! It's going to blow!"
Makoto checked her screen, her face pale under the flickering red emergency lights. "The other pros have confirmed it! These things are consumables! They burn out in three minutes! This one has sixty seconds left before it self-destructs! Just stay alive!"
SCREEECH.
The ceiling vent directly above Makoto didn't just rattle—it was torn open by a set of massive, jagged claws.
A second Nomu, larger and more bloated with raw power than the first, dropped from the shadows like a falling anvil.
It didn't look at the fighters. It looked at the most vulnerable target in the tunnel.
It looked at Makoto.
"MAKOTO! RUN!" Iwao roared, trying to disengage, but the Nomu in front of him locked his arm in a crushing grip. It was a trap.
The second Nomu coiled its corded muscles, all four arms pulling back to launch a combined, 300%-power strike aimed directly at Makoto's chest.
She froze, her breath hitching as the wall of grey muscle lunged forward.
"Master! Don't look away!" Koichi screamed, his face contorted with a terrifying new resolve.
He knew he couldn't reach her in time with a slide, so he prepared to throw himself into the path of the punch. "I'll take the hit! Save her!"
Koichi lunged, eyes closed, preparing for the impact that would likely end him.
CRACK.
The sound wasn't a body breaking. It was a thunderclap muffled by a velvet glove.
The air pressure in the tunnel spiked so violently that the windows in the emergency doors a hundred yards away shattered inward.
A shockwave of pure, invisible force blew the dust off the floor in a perfect, expanding circle around Makoto.
The Nomu's fist was stopped.
Kaito stood in the center of the tunnel. He was still in his civilian clothes—his dark jacket, his white shirt, and his gold-rimmed glasses.
He looked like he had just stepped out of an office, but his hand was raised. He had caught the Nomu's massive, 300%-strength fist with his bare left palm.
The reinforced concrete floor beneath Kaito's red-soled shoes shattered into a spiderweb of cracks, his heels sinking three inches into the ground from the sheer force of the impact, but his arm didn't move a millimeter.
"Wha... Kaito?!" Koichi stammered, falling onto his backside as he stared at his neighbor's back.
Kaito didn't look back. He stood between the monster and Makoto, his expression cold and unreadable behind the glare on his lenses. He tightened his grip on the creature's hand.
CRUNCH.
The sound of the Nomu's bones shattering echoed through the tunnel.
The creature let out a high-pitched, wet shriek of agony as Kaito slowly began to crush its hand into a mangled mess of meat and bone.
"I'm sorry," Kaito said. His voice was a low, heavy rumble that seemed to vibrate the very air in their lungs. "I'm late."
He looked up at the two Nomus. His glasses caught the flickering red emergency light, reflecting a cold, golden fire that made the monsters hesitate.
"Makoto, get behind me," Kaito continued. "Old man, stand down. I'll take it from here."
Kaito didn't explain further. He didn't have to. While the other four people is still in shock. He let go of the first Nomu's mangled hand and stood perfectly straight, smoothing the front of his jacket.
He looked at the two creatures as they both prepared to lunge at him in a final, desperate burst of consumable energy.
Then
SNAP.
The sound of his fingers echoed through the tunnel like a gunshot.
Swoosh.
A silent pillar of pure, concentrated golden energy erupted from Kaito's body.
His black hair flared and surged, turning into a brilliant, glowing white that slicked back as if moved by an invisible wind.
His civilian clothes seemed to pulse and shift, replaced in a flash of light by a signature, razor-sharp all-white suit and a deep red tie.
The metal "X" symbol on his lapel caught the golden light, gleaming with a dangerous intensity.
Hero X stood in the tunnel.
He adjusted his red tie with a slow, confident swagger, his red-soled white shoes crunching on the broken concrete.
The first Nomu lunged, its primitive brain overridden by the terror of the golden light. Hero X didn't even move his feet. He simply struck out with an open-palm thrust flicked his fingers
SNAP.
With a sharp snap of his fingers, a wave of golden distortion hit the Nomu, folding the three-dimensional monster into the two-dimensional stone of the wall.
The second Nomu tried to retreat, its heels skidding on the floor as it scrambled away from him.
But.
SNAP.
A second ripple of golden energy surged through the tunnel. In a silent, sickening blur, the massive creature was pulled toward the opposite wall. It didn't scream; it didn't even have time to breathe.
SHLOOP.
The creature was instantly flattened, its 300% musculature and four arms becoming a sprawling, static mural of grey and black ink on the concrete. The tunnel fell into a heavy, ringing silence.
Hero X exhaled slowly, the golden aura dimming just enough to let his friends see his face. He turned toward them, his white hair still shimmering.
"Kaito...?" Kazuho whispered, her voice trembling. "You're... you're really him? You're Hero X?"
Iwao stared at the graffiti on the walls, then at Kaito.
A slow, grizzled grin formed on his face despite his injuries. "I knew you were hiding something, kid. But Hero X? I didn't expect it to be this."
Kaito looked at them—his friends, his "tribe" from Naruhata.
The swagger of Hero X softened into something more familiar, more human.
He reached up and adjusted his glasses, which were now perched on his white-haired form.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you guys sooner," Kaito said, his voice sincere. "It was... complicated. But listen. Our family is still upstairs, and the main culprit is still tearing the roof off this place. Can I count on you guys to keep this between us for now?"
Koichi scrambled to his feet, looking at Hero X with a mix of terror and absolute fanboy worship. "Are you kidding? You just saved Makoto-san! We've got your back, Kaito!"
Makoto looked at him, her investigative mind finally connecting the dots, but she simply nodded and smiled, her hand resting on her heart. "When I noticed your hiding something. I didn't expect to be this. Your secret is safe. Just... go stop that guy."
Kaito offered them a small, genuine nod—the same one he gave them when the tea was just the right temperature.
"Get to the lower levels," Kaito said. "I'll see you when the sky is clear."
WHOOSH.
In a streak of golden light, he was gone, leaving nothing but a faint scent of expensive cologne and the stunned silence of the four people who now held the biggest secret in Japan.
_-_-_-_-_
Authors Note;
Sorry for the late and inconsistent release updates for the past days. I have recently taken on a new subcontract that requires a massive amount of project planning, and it has been keeping me incredibly occupied.
I am currently facing a tight deadline for this project, so please bear with me. Thank you for your continued support and for sticking with the Arisaka journey!
.....
Support the journey here:
patreon.com/Dr_Chad
(9 Advanced Chapters)