Tonight, Momo's parents had made a rare trip home to have dinner with their daughter. To their surprise, the guest of honor was missing.
"Xuan-kun said he had to go out for a while. He'll be back in a few days," Momo explained.
"Going out?" Her father frowned. A fifteen-year-old boy disappearing for days at a time was cause for concern, even in a world of heroes.
Momo's mother, however, caught the subtle change in her daughter's tone. She leaned over, wrapping her arms around Momo's shoulders from behind. "Oh, Momo, you're getting quite comfortable calling him by his first name. While it's a bit early for romance, as long as it doesn't distract from your studies, Mom doesn't mind."
"Mom! What are you talking about? It's not like that!" Momo's face turned as red as a cherry as she waved her hands in frantic denial.
Her father stroked his beard, adding meaningfully, "If he wants to be a son-in-law of the Yaoyorozu family, he needs to be more than just a talented kid. If he isn't at least at the level of a top-tier Pro, he isn't qualified to enter this house."
"Enough! I'm going back to the library!" Momo stomped her foot and bolted for the stairs, her face burning.
Aichi Prefecture
Japan is small. By high-speed rail, one can cross nearly the entire country in four hours. By late afternoon, Wu Xuan had arrived in Aichi. He stood in the window of a high-rise hotel suite, looking down at the city as the shadows lengthened. As night fell, he pulled on his overcoat and headed toward the outskirts.
In a remote mountainous area, a car lay overturned in a ditch. The vehicle looked as though it had been sliced by a laser; the edges of the metal were as smooth as a cut cake.
"Meat... give me meat... so beautiful, so bloody... cut it into pieces!"
A raspy, irritating voice drifted through the trees, shivering with a twisted sense of ecstasy.
"Finally found you. So, you're Moonfish? What a hideous name."
The voice made Moonfish whip his head around. He was currently crouched over a pool of blood, obsessively admiring the cross-sections of a family of three he had ambushed. The sight reminded Wu Xuan of a certain fictional office worker who obsessed over severed hands—except this guy lacked any desire for a "peaceful life."
"You... YOU!"
Moonfish, encased in his black straitjacket, wriggled across the ground like a predatory maggot. Suddenly, his teeth erupted. They grew and branched with impossible speed, forming a jagged forest of blades that lifted his bound body into the air.
This was his Quirk: Blade-Tooth.
"Flesh and blood! Give me more! Let me see your insides!"
The endless blades shifted direction, surging toward Wu Xuan like a metallic tidal wave.
"Quick to violence? Good. That saves me a lot of time," Wu Xuan muttered. His eyes narrowed.
"THE WORLD!"
BOOM!
CRACK!
Fists moving faster than the eye could track slammed into the oncoming blades. The sound of shattering steel echoed through the clearing as the tooth-blades were ground into shrapnel.
"MORE! GIVE ME MORE!" Moonfish roared, pushing his Quirk to its absolute limit. The blades became a dense, silver thicket, striking with the impact of a high-speed rail. It was clear why the Hero Public Safety Commission recommended only Top 30 Pros for this monster.
"MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA!"
Wu Xuan's face twisted into a ferocious grin. The golden Stand hovering before him unleashed a barrage of punches that surpassed anything he had shown at the U.A. exam.
CRUNCH!
More blades were pulverized, scattering like glass at Wu Xuan's feet. But in the chaos, a single serrated edge managed to bypass the Stand's defense. A thin red line, about three centimeters long, opened on Wu Xuan's right cheek.
He reached up, wiping the blood away with his thumb. A dark excitement bubbled in his chest. "Yeah... coming here was definitely the right move."
[The World] stepped back, merging with Wu Xuan's silhouette. He slammed his feet into the earth, the impact cratering the road as he launched himself twenty meters into the air.
"FLESH! SHOW ME YOUR FLESH!"
Moonfish used his extending fangs like stilts, moving with a jerky, disgusting speed that allowed him to keep pace. Under the moonlight, a massive, wide-range blade attack rose from below, covering Wu Xuan's entire field of vision.
There it is. The pressure.
Wu Xuan hadn't felt this since he arrived in this world. This was the sensation of a true life-or-death struggle—the only environment where limitations could be shattered.
He raised his thumb, his voice a frantic roar: "THE WORLD! MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA!"