Location: SNN News Helicopter – Mid-Air
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT.
The blades of the helicopter fought the supernatural gale, but Hideki Sato didn't care.
He was laughing—a jagged, high-pitched sound of pure, manic relief that bordered on the religious.
He shoved his assistant, Nagi, out of the way to grab the primary lens, leaning so far out of the open door that only his safety harness kept him from being claimed by the wind.
"Hehe... hehehahaha! So you came after all! The miracle born from this world!"
Hideki's voice crackled into the microphone, his eyes wide and bloodshot as he stared at the golden figure on the spire.
He had built a news empire on the back of this man, following the golden trail since the very beginning.
"The one who can later become the god of the new dawn! The life that should be worshipped above all! The Singularity!"
Hideki leaned into the camera, his face twisted in a grin of pure ecstasy.
"HERO X!"
Nagi gasped, clutching her seat as she looked at the monitor. "That... that's really him? After all this time, he's back?"
"HERO X!" Hideki screamed, his voice vibrating through the broadcast speakers in millions of homes. "The golden dawn has arrived to end this nightmare! Witness him, Japan! Witness the man who breaks every rule!"
_-_-_-_-_
Location: Musutafu – Midoriya Residence
In a small, darkened living room, Izuku Midoriya was leaned forward so far his forehead was nearly touching the glass of the television.
His notebook was open.
"The atmospheric pressure... it's completely stabilized," Izuku mumbled, his voice a rapid-fire blur of words. "All Might's Detroit Smash cleared the initial cloud layer, but Hero X is holding the structural integrity of the entire tower without a physical touch. And Captain Celebrity... his Aerodynamic Flight-Shield must be under immense feedback, yet he's still positioned for a counter-offensive. Endeavor's Prominence Burn should have melted the glass, but the aura is acting as a heat-sink... if they coordinate, if they actually combine their kinetic output with X's stabilization—"
MEOW.
Kuro, the sleek black cat Kaito had rescued, stood on his hind legs on the coffee table.
His golden eyes were fixed on the screen, reflecting the white-suited figure.
Having a high intelligence catching up to even Nezu's, Kuro could sense the shift in the room.
He tapped Izuku's hand with a sharp paw, a firm reminder to stop the frantic mumbling.
Izuku blinked, snapping out of his trance. He looked around the room, where various tactical gears—customized reinforced gloves, high-tensile cables, and specialized goggles they had spent months tinkering with for their vigilante nights—were laid out on the workbench.
Puuurr.
Kuro let out a low, vibrating purr. He didn't know why, but the man on the screen felt familiar.
It was a warmth he remembered from the moment his entire life changed.
"You're right, Kuro," Izuku whispered, his eyes shine with hope. "This is it. The Top 1, the Top 2, the American Number 1, and... and the strongest individual. They're all in one place."
_-_-_-_-_-_
Location: Shizuoka – Unkown Shelter
Inside a reinforced concrete bunker hidden beneath an abandoned warehouse, Dabi sat on a plush velvet chair he'd taken from a subdued underling.
Behind him, a dozen low-tier thugs he had spent the last few months breaking and recruiting stood in silent terror.
"Hehehe"
Dabi had been laughing—a cold, dry sound—as he watched Endeavor's face get slammed into the glass dome.
"Look at him," Dabi had sneered, pointing at the screen. "The Number Two, crawling in the rain like a stray dog."
But as the golden light flooded the screen and the reporter's manic introduction filled the room, Dabi's laughter stopped.
He leaned forward, his blue eyes narrowing as he focused on Hero X. This was the man who had stopped him months ago, the one who had told him to live on. The one who saved him and changed his life.
The glee of seeing his father suffer was replaced by an intense, burning curiosity. The room went cold as Dabi's flames flickered a low, dangerous blue.
"So this is him, he's back," Dabi muttered, his fingers tracing the staples on his jaw. "This is the second time I've seen you X... "
_-_-_-_-_-_
Location: Hosu City – Rooftops
Stendhal stood over the crumpled body of a Yakuza leader.
The rooftop was littered with "Trigger" canisters and the unconscious bodies of the leader's guards.
He had been about to deliver a final, cleansing blow to the man who was poisoning the city with drugs.
He stopped.
A giant jumbotron on the building across the street was broadcasting the Sky Egg disaster live. Stendhal sheathed his blade, his eyes fixed on the golden figure.
"Finally," Stendhal rasped, his voice full of a dark, reverent awe. "The shadow can retreat."
He turned back to the Yakuza leader, but he didn't kill him.
Instead, he grabbed the man by the hair and forced him to look at the screen.
"Watch, filth," Stendhal commanded. "Watch the man who will purify this world. You aren't worth the blood on my blade while a god is walking the earth. Witness a real hero."
_-_-_-_-_-_
Location: The Secret Vault – Deep Underground
Inside a chamber filled with pulsing tanks and rhythmic mechanical hums, All For One stood in the center of the room.
He reached up, his fingers brushing the side of his head—the exact spot where Hero X had struck him in the past.
Across the room, Dr. Garaki was frantically tapping on a console.
"The 'Consumables' are performing at three hundred percent, but the stabilization field is neutralizing their kinetic impact!" the Doctor shouted. "Master, the energy readings are off the charts!"
All For One didn't answer immediately. He stared at the screen, his focus predatory and cold. He wasn't looking for a fight; he was looking for a harvest.
"Record everything, Doctor," All For One said, his voice a low, heavy rumble. "Every snap of his fingers. Every shift in the light. I want the data on those clones compared to the resistance he offers."
He watched Hero X adjust his glasses on the screen.
"And search the attendee list for that concert," All For One commanded. "Cross-reference every name, every facial recognition hit, and every financial trail and look at all of their quirks recorded. Somewhere in that stadium is the heartbeat that may match that white suit."
_-_-_-_-_-_
Location: The Sky Egg – Shattered Dome Apex
SNAP.
The sound was a sharp, dry pop that cut through the roar of the gale.
On the rain-slicked pavement, All Might and Endeavor didn't even see the movement.
One microsecond, the spire was empty; the next, a man in a pristine white suit was standing between them.
Hero X stood casually, his hands shoved into the pockets of his slacks, his red-soled shoes planted firmly on the jagged edges of the crater.
He didn't look like he was standing in the middle of a war zone; he looked like he was waiting for a train.
Hero X looked at Captain Celebrity.
The American hero was a hundred feet above, his massive shoulders bunched.
"You can come down now, Captain," Hero X said. His voice was conversational, lacking any of the shouting or drama of the other heroes.
Captain Celebrity looked down, his eyes widening behind his visor.
He knew the face. Every hero in America had seen the grainy footage of the man who had erased All For One in Ota Ward.
"Hero X..." CC said. He slowly began to swoop down noticing that the building didn't move and was repaired.
Swiish-swoosh.
Christopher let out a jagged breath of relief and flew down landing heavily. "The rumors in the States... they didn't do you justice."
Hero X didn't look back at him. He turned his gaze toward All Might.
The Symbol of Peace was a mess of torn spandex and drying blood, but he was standing tall.
All Might stared at the man in white, his mind flashing back to the gray dust of Ota Ward—the day this man had treated him like an amateur and dismantled the greatest villain in history without breaking a sweat.
"My bad for the last time we met, All Might," Hero X said.
He offered a slight, human nod, the glare on his gold-rimmed glasses softening.
"Back in the Ota Ward... I was a bit detached. Sorry about the punch."
All Might let out a huffed, wet laugh, leaning on his knees for a second.
"Hahah. Don't worry, X-shonen," All Might rasped. "But I suppose I can forgive the bruise. You've certainly changed your tune. You sound... more like a man now."
"I have good friends," Kaito replied simply, glancing over at Endeavor.
The Number Two hero was steaming, literally. His flames were a jagged, angry orange, and his face was a mask of wounded pride.
"Don't look at me like that, vigilante!" Endeavor roared, slamming a flaming fist into his palm. "I don't care how you're holding this building up! Look at the situation! There are a hundred and sixty of those monsters surrounding on us! We're outnumbered and pinned!"
"Yeah, I saw them," Hero X said.
He raised a hand and adjusted his glasses with his thumb.
"They're a bit messy. It ruins the aesthetic of the concert."
High above, Nine was hovering in the eye of the vortex. His long hair was wild, and his violet aura was sparking with a manic, terrified energy. He looked at the new arrival of another player.
"Hero X!" Nine said, his voice echoing through the stadium's emergency frequencies. "You talk as you own the place. But this time I'm ending you for good."
Hero X let out a long, bored sigh.
"You're way too loud."
SNAP.
A golden ripple of energy exploded from X's feet.
It didn't strike anything; it rushed outward in a perfect, five-hundred-meter radius, a shimmering dome of golden light that settled over the entire Sky Egg and the surrounding plaza.
"There," Hero X said, smoothing his red tie.
"I've stabilized the environment. Within this field, I've locked the physics of the surroundings. Nothing breaks unless I want it to. You guys can finally stop holding back for fear of the property and secondary damage. Go all out. I'll handle the rest of the trash."
SNAP.
He snapped his fingers again.
Suddenly, the speakers of the Sky Egg—the high-end line-arrays Kaito had personally helped install—began to hum.
The power grid Nine had severed was suddenly, impossibly, back online.
A heavy, driving beat began to pulse through the air, vibrating the very glass under their feet.
The new song, "New Type of Hero," erupted with a volume covering all the surrounding and heard by almost all people in the location and also on the botadcast.
[Ain't never seen something quite like it, mm...
And when we play we don't stop fighting...
Won't see it coming fast like lightning, whoa-mm...]
"I'll just move my bones a bit," Hero X said.
A confident, swaggering grin touched his lips as the bass dropped.
"It's been a long time since I had a real workout. Let's make this lively. It is a concert, after all. How about this song of mine sounds guys?" Hero X continued as he turned to look at All Might, Endeavor and Captain Celebrity who has questions on their faces about the sudden music.
"....."
"....."
"....."
[We're that whole new type of hero, hero...
We gon' win wherever we go, we go...
Explosions in the sky...
Be-be-be-bending space and time...]
Hero X took his hands out of his pockets and looked at the 160 Nomus frozen.
"Let's go."
_-_-_-_-_
VROOOOM.
Hero X vanished from the ground, leaving a faint ripple in the air that smelled of dust and expensive cologne.
He didn't reappear on a platform or a spire. He materialized in the absolute center of the one hundred and sixty frozen Nomus.
He was suspended in the ground, a white-suited speck surrounded by a sphere of grey, thrashing limbs.
Hero X raised his hand and looked at his watch.
SNAP.
Time resumed.
"ROOAAAR!"
The silence was obliterated by the simultaneous roars of 160 engines of meat and bone.
The Nomus, fueled by 300% cellular output, didn't hesitate.
They converged on the center point from every angle—north, south, above, and below.
Hero X didn't move his feet. He didn't take his hands out of his pockets.
WHACK.
THUD.
BASH.
He tilted his torso an inch to the left, and a massive fist carrying enough force to level a building whistled past his ear.
He leaned back, and a set of bone-claws meant to disembowel him sliced through empty air.
He moved with the fluid, effortless grace of a man walking through a light rain, his eyes calm behind his golden glasses.
CRICCKLE-CRAACKLE.
One Nomu, its body sparking with a high-voltage quirk, lunged with a dual-palm strike.
X simply shifted his shoulder, letting the beast's momentum carry it past him.
As it passed, he offered a single, nonchalant yawn.
Yaawn.
A secondary wave of Nomus unleashed their variety.
One fired shards of pressurized ice from its chest; another swung a tail made of serrated steel; a third accelerated with a speed quirk that blurred the air.
Swish.
Swoosh.
Bzzzt.
"Hmn?" Hero X spotted a loose coin floating in the turbulence—a single 100-yen piece.
SNAP.
He flicked the coin with his thumb.
VROOOOOOM! Bing-bang. BOOM!
The coin didn't just fly; it ignited. It became a golden beam of pure, concentrated kinetic force that punched through the chest of the speedster Nomu, ricocheted off an invisible barrier in the sky, and tore through the skulls of four more attackers in a jagged zig-zag before returning to his hand.
"Hey! Don't you dare ignore me!" Endeavor roared.
The Number Two hero launched himself into the sky, a pillar of white-hot fire trailing behind him.
He slammed into the horde, his flames incinerating a Nomu's arm, but he was immediately swarmed.
Four Nomus grabbed his limbs, their 300% strength pinning even his fire.
"Nice heat, Endeavor! But you're making this look like hard work!" X shouted over the driving beat of the music.
[We're that whole new type of hero, hero...
We gon' win wherever we go, we go...]
Hero X walked through the air toward Endeavor.
He didn't fly; he stepped onto a nearby concrete wall that shouldn't have been there—a piece of the environment he had "borrowed" from the ground below.
ZIP. POP.
As X stepped onto the wall, his form flattened. He became a vibrant, high-contrast drawing, moving across the bricks like a flicker of ink.
He reached out and grabbed Endeavor's hand, pulling the massive, flaming hero into the wall with him.
"WHAT—?! UNHAND ME!" Endeavor screamed.
But it was too late. Endeavor felt his volume vanish. He looked down and saw his hands were now made of thick, orange charcoal lines.
He was a 2D image, trapped in a drawing alongside Hero X.
"Wha... what did you do to me?!" Endeavor's voice was high-pitched and distorted, like a recorded track played at the wrong speed.
"Just changing the perspective," X said, his ink-drawn form adjusting its tie.
They ran across the surface of the wall, which was now drifting through the sky.
A Nomu tried to punch the bricks, but Hero X simply "flipped" the canvas. The Nomu's fist passed through the back of the drawing, hitting nothing but empty air.
WHIISH.
Hero X looked at a massive billboard drifting in the vortex. It featured a high-end luxury car, a sleek silver model with red leather seats.
SNAP.
The car didn't just fall out of the frame; it expanded. It regained its three-dimensional mass, the engine roaring to life as it manifested in mid-air.
Hero X grabbed the 2D Endeavor by the collar and "peeled" him off the wall, shoving him into the passenger seat as they both regained their volume.
"What are you—GET ME OUT OF THIS CONTRAPTION!" Endeavor bellowed, his flames licking the interior roof.
"Buckle up, old man!" X laughed, sliding into the driver's seat. "This is the VIP transport!"
VROOOOOM!
Hero X slammed the gas. The car didn't fall; it drove across the air as if the wind itself were a paved highway.
They sped through the clouds, the tires leaving golden trails of sparks.
CRASH.
BANG.
WALLOP.
They plowed through a line of Nomus. Every time the bumper hit a monster, the creature didn't explode—it flattened into a grey graffiti drawing on the windshield.
Hero X reached out and turned on the wipers, the rubber blades erasing the 2D Nomus and flicking them into the wind like scraps of paper.
"Get off! Get off me!" Endeavor roared, leaning out of the window and blasting fire at a Nomu that had latched onto the side-mirror.
BOOM!
They crashed through a floating vending machine that had been tossed upward by Nine's storm.
CLINK. CLINK.
Two cans of soda popped out of the wreckage and rolled across the dashboard.
Hero X caught them both with one hand, steering with his knees as he popped the tab on one and handed the other to Endeavor.
"You look like you're overheating," X said, taking a casual swig of the drink as he drifted the car around a corner of the Sky Egg spire.
"Thirsty?"
"...."
Endeavor stared at the can of orange soda, then at the man driving a billboard car through a sky full of nightmares while a pop song blared from the sky.
His brain felt like it was being put through a meat-grinder. He threw the can at a Nomu's head and leaped out of the car.
"I HATE YOU!" Endeavor screamed as he plummeted back toward the dome.
"What a temper," Hero X chuckled, tossing his empty can into the backseat and looking up.
_-_-_-_-_
The fight between Nine, All Might, and Captain Celebrity reached its absolute peak.
With the "Safe Zone" holding the stadium together, All Might no longer had to pull his punches. He was a golden storm of raw, unbridled power.
"UNITED STATES OF... SMASH!"
All Might's fist connected with Nine's jaw at the same microsecond that Captain Celebrity slammed a two-handed overhead strike into the villain's crown.
BOOM.
The shockwave cleared the clouds for five miles.
Nine was driven downward with the velocity of a meteor, his regeneration failing as the combined physical trauma shattered his skeletal structure.
He hit the glass of the dome with a force that created a crater spanning the entire roof.
Hero X noticed the song was nearing its end. The beat was slowing, moving toward the final, heavy crescendo.
"Alright," X said, standing on the hood of his floating car. "Let's wrap this up. I'm not getting paid for overtime today."
SNAP.
The sound was like a crystalline crack in the center of the sky.
Suddenly, the one hundred and twenty Nomus were no longer in control of their own mass.
In a flash of golden light, invisible threads of force latched onto every single monster—from those diving toward the screaming crowds in the plaza to those clinging to the steel spire.
VROOOOM.
With a violent, spatial pull, the air itself seemed to buckle.
The Nomus were yanked through the sky at terminal velocity, all of them being dragged toward a single coordinate five hundred feet above the central fountain.
THUD.
SLAM.
CRUNCH.
They were slammed together, limbs tangling and bone grinding against bone, until they formed a massive, grotesque sphere of grey flesh.
One hundred and twenty 300%-enhanced monsters were trapped in a ball of meat, their mindless eyes wide as they thrashed against the pressure holding them in place.
Hero X looked up at the massive ball of monsters. He didn't look impressed.
YAWN.
He offered a single, long, and remarkably bored yawn, his gold-rimmed glasses catching the moonlight.
SNAP.
The sphere didn't explode. It didn't catch fire.
SHLOOP. SHLOOP. SHLOOP.
The reality within the golden radius simply inverted.
The three-dimensional volume of the one hundred and twenty Nomus was deleted.
In a stylized, high-contrast blur, the massive ball began to shrink and flatten simultaneously. It was sucked into a single, infinitesimal point of light that lasted for a fraction of a second.
Then, the light vanished.
Flutter-flutter.
In its place, a single, fluttering cloud of tiny white slips of paper began to drift down from the empty sky.
They fell like a quiet snowstorm, caught in the residual golden glow of X's presence.
Each slip was a small, perfectly square postage stamp, bearing a sharp, 2D ink drawing of a snarling Nomu.
Hero X reached out.
He caught one of the slips between two fingers with the casual ease of a man catching a falling leaf.
The final note of the song echoed across the stadium, fading into the night.
[We're that whole new type of hero, hero...]
The music died. The golden "Safe Zone" field evaporated, and the storm clouds above finally broke, revealing the first few stars of a quiet Saturday night.
Hero X looked at the tiny paper Nomu in his hand. He held it up, looking at the ink-stained beast that had just been a living nightmare. With a slow, effortless motion, he tore the paper in half.
RIP.
The paper didn't fall to the ground. It dissolved into a handful of golden dust that the wind carried away.
All Might, Endeavor, and Captain Celebrity stood nearby, their bodies caked in blood and soot.
HUFF-PUFF.
They were breathing in heavy, jagged gasps, the adrenaline of a war that had pushed them to their limits still surging through their veins.
They looked down at the man in the white suit, who was now standing casually on the pavement of the plaza.
Endeavor didn't wait. His red-soled boots leaving scorched trails on the pavement as he landed in the plaza with a heavy, bone-shaking thud.
"X! STOP RIGHT THERE!" Endeavor roared, his face a mask of smoke and fury as he marched toward the man in white.
"Where do you think you're going? We have a thousand questions! The HPSC, the police—you're coming with us for an account of this!"
Hero X didn't even turn his head. He didn't slow his pace.
He started walking toward the shadows of the alleys, his hands back in his pockets, his posture loose and unbothered.
"Endeavor... Everyone.." X said, his voice trailing back over his shoulder like a cool breeze. "I'm going home, of course."
"Wait!" All Might called out from the dome, his voice hoarse but echoing with a newfound weight. "In Ota Ward, you said we were just 'safety violations.' But today... you saved my friends. You saved the people. Who are you, really?"
Hero X paused at the very edge of the darkness.
He looked back over his shoulder, the golden aura giving one final, soft flicker that lit up his white hair and the sharp, fashionable line of his jaw. He offered a small, two-fingered salute.
"I'm just a guy who likes a good concert," he said. "Keep the change."
SNAP.
The space where he stood folded inward like the last page of a book. He was gone.
The plaza fell into a stunned, absolute silence. Not a single person moved.
CLAP.
CLAP.
CLAP.
Then, from the back of the crowd, a single person started to clap. Then ten. Then a hundred thousand.
WOOOOOOHHHH.
The roar of the applause was louder than any thunder Nine had ever summoned.
The Tokyo Sky Egg wasn't falling. The monsters were gone. And Hero X had once again rewritten the world and walked away without looking back.
_-_-_-_-_
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(9 Advanced Chapters)