The air inside the warehouse was thick with the smell of ozone, cheap cigarettes, and the desperate heat of a hundred people holding their breaths. It was a cavernous space, illuminated mostly by flickering neon signs that advertised nothing and the harsh glow of the makeshift fighting ring in the center. This was Gachinko. It was a place for people who had been chewed up by the hero society and spat back out. Here, nobody cared about your license or your social ranking. They only cared about the gamble.
Kinji Hakari stood on a shipping container overlooking the floor. He was eighteen, though the way he carried himself suggested someone who had spent twice that time in the gutters. His purple hair was a mess of curls, and he wore a heavy, fur-collared coat despite the sweltering heat of the crowd. He wasn't looking at the money being exchanged. He was watching the two men in the ring. One had a Quirk that turned his skin to brass. The other was a speedster who was already flagging.
"He's going to fold," Hakari muttered. His voice was deep, scraping like gravel.
An employee, standing beside him with a tablet, nodded. "The odds are shifting. If the brass guy lands one more hit, the house is going to take a massive hit on the payout."
Hakari grinned. It wasn't a kind smile. It was the look of a man who loved seeing the cliff's edge. "Let it ride. The Fever is just starting to peak."
The Fever was everything to him. It was that specific, electric vibration in the ribs when everything was on the line. He could feel it now, humming beneath his skin like a live wire. It was a jagged, uncomfortable energy. Most people who got too close to Hakari described it as feeling like sandpaper. It was rough. It was abrasive. It was exactly like him.
The peace didn't last. The heavy steel doors at the far end of the warehouse didn't just open. They vanished under the force of a singular, explosive kick.
The sound was like a bomb going off. The gamblers screamed, scattering like roaches when a light is turned on. Through the dust and the debris, a silhouette appeared. She was athletic, with long white hair and rabbit ears that twitched with aggressive intent.
"Found you, you little rats!" Mirko shouted. Her grin was just as wild as Hakari's. She didn't wait for backup. She didn't announce her presence with a megaphone. She simply launched herself into the room, her powerful legs shattering the concrete floor as she leaped.
Hakari didn't move. He watched her tear through his security detail like they were made of wet paper. Behind her, the air grew thick with a different kind of pressure. Hawks descended from the hole in the roof, his crimson feathers detached and orbiting him like a swarm of deadly drones. Best Jeanist followed, descending slowly on threads of invisible fiber, his eyes scanning the room with a cold, professional disappointment.
"Kinji Hakari," Best Jeanist said, his voice echoing through the rafters. "You are under arrest for the operation of an illegal gambling ring, multiple counts of unlicensed Quirk usage, and the corruption of public order. Step down and submit."
Hakari hopped down from the container, landing softly in the center of the chaos. He ignored Jeanist entirely, his eyes locked on Mirko. She had stopped ten feet away from him, her nose wrinkling as she caught his scent.
"You the boss?" she asked. She bounced on the balls of her feet, her muscles coiled like springs. "You look a bit young to be running a dump like this."
"Age is just a number when you're playing the house," Hakari replied. He shed his fur coat, letting it hit the floor. The jagged energy around him began to flare, visible as a faint, violet haze that seemed to grind against the very air. "You're the Rabbit Hero, right? You look like someone who knows how to bet on themselves."
Mirko laughed, a sharp, barking sound. "I don't bet. I just win. Let's see if you're worth the paperwork."
She moved faster than the eye could follow. It was a blur of white and tan, her heel swinging in a lethal arc aimed at Hakari's temple. Hakari didn't dodge. He threw up a forearm, meeting the kick head-on.
The impact sent a shockwave through the warehouse. Mirko's eyes widened. She felt it immediately. It wasn't like hitting a person. It was like kicking a block of industrial-grade sandpaper. The rough energy of his Quirk tore at the fabric of her leggings and stung her skin.
"What is that?" she grunted, pushing off and flipping backward. "Your skin feels like a damn cheese grater."
"That's just my personality," Hakari said. He stepped forward, his fists clenched. He swung a heavy right hook, which Mirko ducked easily, but she wasn't prepared for what came next. From thin air, a massive, translucent shutter door manifested, slamming shut between them.
Mirko barely reacted in time, punching the construct. The door shattered under her strength, but it had served its purpose. It had slowed her down for a fraction of a second. Hakari was already there, his knuckles glowing with that abrasive violet light. He landed a punch to her ribs that sent her skidding across the concrete.
"Not bad, kid!" Mirko shouted, wiping a smudge of dust from her cheek. Her excitement was visible now. She wasn't just doing a job; she was enjoying the friction. "Hey, Jeanist! Stay out of this! I want to see how much this brat can take!"
Best Jeanist, hovering above, adjusted his collar. "We are not here for a sparring match, Mirko. The Association wants this handled with minimal property damage. He is a high-risk element."
"Oh, shut up about the Association," Mirko snapped. She charged again, her movements becoming a flurry of kicks.
Hakari met her blow for blow. He was taking damage. Mirko was a Top 10 hero for a reason. Every time her foot connected, it felt like being hit by a sledgehammer. But Hakari was laughing. He felt the Fever rising. His blood was pumping, and the jagged energy around him was becoming more intense, more erratic.
Hawks watched from above, his feathers twitching. "He's not using a normal emitter Quirk. Look at the way the energy behaves. It's dense. It's like he's reinforcing his entire molecular structure with it. Jeanist, he's not going to tire out anytime soon."
"Then we end this now," Jeanist said. He raised his hands, and the threads of Hakari's own clothing began to turn against him. The denim of his trousers and the fibers of his shirt tightened, coiling around his limbs like iron wire.
Hakari felt his movement stop. He was pinned, his arms pulled back and his legs locked together. Best Jeanist landed on the floor, his expression stern. "Your resistance is illogical. You have talent, but you lack the discipline to weave it into something meaningful. You are merely a fraying thread."
Hakari looked at the fibers cutting into his skin. He looked at Hawks, who was closing in from the sky, and Mirko, who looked annoyed that her fight had been interrupted. He felt the weight of the Association closing in. They wanted to put him in a box. They wanted to categorize his power, label it, and file it away in a prison cell.
The thought of it made his stomach turn. It was boring. It was the opposite of the Fever.
"You guys talk a lot about logic," Hakari said. He started to chuckle, a low, vibrating sound that made the threads on his arms fray. "But you've got it all wrong. Life isn't a straight line. It's a gamble. And I'm about to go all in."
"Don't do anything stupid, kid," Hawks warned, sensing the shift in the air.
Hakari's eyes went wide, glowing with a manic intensity. He didn't just flare his energy. He expanded it. "Domain Expansion."
The words meant nothing to the heroes, but the effect was instantaneous.
The world didn't just change; it was overwritten. The grimy, salt-stained walls of the warehouse were replaced by a shimmering, hyper-real space that defied every law of physics the Pro Heroes knew. Massive, floating screens flickered to life, showing stylized characters from a romance manga called 'Pure Love Train.'
"What in the hell is this?" Mirko snapped. She tried to lunge at Hakari, but as she moved, a series of transparent railroad doors slammed shut in her path. She punched through them, the shards of energy stinging her knuckles like broken glass, but the delay was enough for Hakari to sidestep her.
At that same moment, a massive amount of information was forced into their minds. It wasn't a choice or a telepathic suggestion. It was a "sure-hit" mechanical function of the space they were in.
Hawks winced, pressing a hand to his temple as his wings flared instinctively. "Visual indicators... probability stages... reach sequences? Is this guy serious? He's making us play a game?"
Best Jeanist stood his ground, though his eyes were darting between the floating screens. "It is an information overload. He is forcing us to understand the rules of his Quirk so the 'gamble' is legitimate. It is remarkably uncivilized."
Hakari stood in the center of the mechanical stage, his aura crackling with that sandpaper grit. He looked like he was in a trance, his eyes locked on the spinning slots on the main screen. "Don't blame me. The house needs everyone to know the stakes before the cards are dealt. Right now, we're in the 'Normal' stage. My luck is neutral. But the Fever... the Fever is starting to climb."
Mirko didn't care about the rules. She didn't care about the romance plotline playing out on the screens behind Hakari. She saw an opening and took it. She blurred across the floor, her leg coming around in a high arc. Hakari blocked it, but the force of the blow sent him skidding. Mirko didn't stop. She followed up with a flurry of strikes, her heels cracking against his ribs and shoulders.
Hakari was taking hits. Real hits. Blood sprayed from his lip, and his breathing was becoming ragged. Inside the domain, he wasn't invincible yet. He was just a man with a rough energy trying to survive long enough to hit the mark.
"You're wide open, kid!" Mirko yelled, spinning for a finishing kick.
"Not yet," Hakari wheezed.
On the screens above, two manga characters—a boy and a girl on a train station platform—reached out for each other's hands. The bells of the domain began to chime with a deafening, rhythmic clatter. A "Reach Sequence" had begun.
Suddenly, the environment shifted. A blast of pink petals and glowing hearts swirled around Hakari, acting as a physical shield that cushioned Mirko's strike.
"Hearts? You're blocking me with hearts?" Mirko sounded more offended than hurt. She kicked again, tearing through the visual effects, but the "luck" of the domain was already manifesting. A pair of giant, glowing green balls manifested in the air, orbiting Hakari like shields. One of them slammed into Mirko's chest, throwing her back toward Hawks.
"The probability is shifting," Hawks muttered, his feathers darting out to catch Mirko before she hit a mechanical pillar. "Look at the screens. He's about to hit the jackpot."
The music changed. The low hum of the warehouse was replaced by a high-energy, J-pop anthem that seemed to vibrate the very floor. The two characters on the screen finally embraced, and a massive '777' flashed across every surface in the room.
The effect on Hakari was immediate and terrifying.
The wounds on his face didn't just heal; they vanished as if they had never existed. The jagged, sandpaper aura around him exploded outward, turning into a blinding, white-hot torrent of energy that felt infinite. His posture straightened, his muscles tightened, and the exhaustion that had been weighing him down a second ago was incinerated.
"Jackpot," Hakari whispered. He looked at his hands, which were glowing with a soft, pulsing light.
Best Jeanist didn't wait. He threw every thread he had, a massive wave of denim and carbon fiber intended to cocoon Hakari completely. "End this now! Do not let him move!"
The threads hit Hakari, wrapping around him ten layers thick. But Hakari didn't even try to struggle. He simply walked forward. The threads snapped like old twine the moment they touched his skin. The sheer output of his energy was so high that anything trying to restrain him was simply obliterated.
"It's no use," Hakari said, his voice echoing with a strange, metallic resonance. "For the next four minutes and eleven seconds, I'm basically immortal. My body is performing 'Reverse Cursed Technique' automatically. Even if you take my head off, it'll probably grow back before it hits the floor."
Mirko's grin returned, though there was a bead of sweat on her forehead now. "Immortal, huh? That sounds like a challenge."
She launched herself at him again, and this time, Hakari didn't block. He let her land a devastating kick right to his solar plexus. The sound of ribs breaking was audible, but before Mirko could even retract her leg, the bones snapped back into place. The bruise faded in a heartbeat.
Hakari countered with a punch of his own. It wasn't fancy. It was a straight right hand, but with the infinite energy behind it, it sent Mirko flying through three rows of mechanical constructs.
Hawks tried to intervene, sending a hundred feathers at once to pin Hakari's joints. The feathers pierced his skin, but they were pushed back out by the sheer pressure of his blood flow and healing flesh. Hakari was a juggernaut. He moved through the Pro Heroes like they were obstacles on a track, his laughter growing louder as the song reached its chorus.
"He's not tiring," Jeanist said, his voice tight with genuine concern. "The Association files didn't mention this. They said his Quirk was construction-based. This is... this is a biological anomaly."
The fight was a blur of violence. Mirko kept coming back, her own "Fever" matching Hakari's, but no matter how much damage she dealt, he remained untouched. He was a man who had cheated death by making it a matter of statistics.
Then, the music began to fade. The pop song slowed, the bright lights of the domain began to dim, and the '777' on the screens started to flicker.
"Times up, brat," Mirko panted, her hair matted with sweat. She stood ten feet away, her chest heaving. She was battered, her uniform torn in a dozen places. Beside her, Hawks and Jeanist were equally spent, their Quirk outputs reaching their limits. "Your little song is over. Now we do this the hard way."
The domain dissolved. The mechanical world crumbled away, leaving them standing back in the cold, dusty warehouse. The silence that followed was heavy. Hakari stood in the center, his glow fading. He looked human again. Vulnerable.
"Finally," Hawks sighed, retracting his remaining feathers. "I thought that song was never going to end. Jeanist, get the heavy restraints."
Jeanist stepped forward, his fingers twitching as he prepared a final, reinforced binding. "You fought well, Kinji Hakari. But the game is over."
Hakari looked down at the floor, then up at the three heroes. He gave them a bloody, lopsided grin. "Over? Who said it was over?"
"You're empty, kid," Mirko said. "Even I can see that. You're shaking."
"Yeah, I'm shaking," Hakari said, his voice rising. "But that's just the Fever. You guys missed the most important rule of the house."
He slammed his palms together. The abrasive, sandpaper energy flared up again, just as strong as it had been at the start of the raid.
"When I hit a jackpot, my energy is restored to full," Hakari shouted. "The house never runs out of chips! Domain Expansion: Idle Death Gamble!"
The air began to fracture again. The pink lights began to bleed back into the warehouse. The heroes' eyes widened in genuine shock. They had given everything to survive the first round, and the realization that Hakari could simply reset the board was devastating. Mirko actually took a step back, her jaw dropping.
"Again?" she breathed. "You've got to be kidding me."
But the domain didn't finish forming.
Just as the mechanical walls were starting to manifest, the purple energy suddenly flickered and died. It didn't fade; it was snuffed out, like a candle being pinched by a giant thumb.
Hakari gasped, his hands still pressed together, but nothing was happening. The "Fever" was gone. He felt cold. Empty.
"That's enough," a flat, tired voice said from the shadows of the mezzanine.
Everyone turned. Standing on the walkway above them was a man who looked like he hadn't slept in a decade. He wore a tattered black jumpsuit and a scarf made of heavy, gray bandages. His eyes were glowing a dull, predatory red, and his long black hair was floating upward as if caught in an invisible updraft.
"Aizawa," Hawks said, his voice filled with relief. "You're late."
"I was busy dealing with the stragglers outside," Shouto Aizawa said, his gaze fixed firmly on Hakari. "The Association didn't tell me I'd be dealing with a student-aged delinquent who doesn't know when to fold."
Hakari tried to force his energy to spark, but it was useless. As long as those red eyes were on him, he was just a teenager in a warehouse. The adrenaline began to crash, and the sheer weight of the fatigue from the Jackpot's end finally hit him like a physical blow.
"My Quirk..." Hakari muttered, his knees finally giving out. He hit the concrete hard, his hands trembling.
"Is currently suppressed," Aizawa finished, leaping down from the mezzanine with a fluid, cat-like grace. He landed in front of Hakari, the capturing cloth around his neck already beginning to uncoil. "You've caused enough trouble for one night. The gamble is over, kid."
Mirko walked over, looking down at the kneeling Hakari. She looked frustrated that the fight had been cut short, but she also looked impressed. "He was going to do it again, Aizawa. He was going to drag us back in there."
Aizawa didn't respond. He stepped forward and efficiently wrapped the capturing cloth around Hakari's wrists and torso. He did it with the practiced ease of a man who had arrested a thousand villains.
Hakari didn't fight back. He couldn't. He just sat there, staring at the floor as the Association tactical teams finally swarmed the building, their heavy boots echoing on the concrete. The "Gachinko" lights were being smashed, the gamblers were being loaded into trucks, and his kingdom was being dismantled piece by piece.
He felt a shadow fall over him. He looked up to see a small white creature in a suit standing next to Aizawa.
"You look like a man who just lost a very large bet," Nezu said, his voice uncomfortably cheerful.
Hakari spat a bit of blood to the side. "The house cheated. That guy with the eyes... that's a rigged deck if I ever saw one."
"Perhaps," Nezu said, tilting his head. "But in the real world, the house always has a few tricks up its sleeve. The question is, are you ready to learn how to play a different game?"
Hakari closed his eyes. The Fever was gone, replaced by a dull, aching silence. But as he was pulled to his feet by the tactical team, he couldn't help but think about the way Mirko had looked at him. He couldn't help but think about the look on the heroes' faces when he had tried to open his domain a second time.
"Well, I guess you won. I finally lost a gamble." Hakari muttered, dragged along by the tactical team.
He had lost the warehouse. He had lost the ring. But as Nezu leaned in to whisper about a "special enrollment," Hakari realized the biggest gamble of his life was only just beginning.