The sea.
That was the first thing TN realized as he tumbled out of the icy abyss. The mud portal spat him out ten meters above the ground, straight into the dank void. The impact with the concrete was brief and crushing—his bones responded with a dull groan, but the sharp pain, strangely enough, sobered him. It tore him from his stupor.
The salty sea breeze and the icy abrasiveness of the pier, gnawing at his ribs. The world seemed turned inside out and thrown where it didn't belong. TN coughed, spitting out viscous, blood-tinged saliva.
There were no lights around, no clear silhouettes of containers—only white noise, muffled, as if he were still underwater. And... lines. Faint, trembling, broken. A mesh of whims. The naked nervous system of reality, which he had learned to see long before his life had finally collapsed into hell.
Somewhere off to the side, a huge, distorted knot pulsed. A jagged wound in space that had not yet healed.
Tiger. Beast.
—...alive...— he croaked, not knowing to whom he was addressing.
The foolish hope that the creature had died during the transition crumbled to dust. TN felt it—a heavy, predatory presence. His palm slid across the rough concrete; he tried to rise, but the world swayed, and he nearly collapsed back down. His own body now seemed alien, hastily assembled from broken glass and fatigue.
Through Quirk Vision, he saw the monster's "Blood Regeneration"—a Quirk grafted onto Nomu so brazenly and crudely that it resembled a festering blood clot. One glance at that crimson clot inside the beast told him the truth: this creature needed the blood of others to start the process. It didn't just hunt. It fed to rise again and again.
—The smell...— Something clicked in his head, the pieces of the puzzle snapping into place with a painful crunch.
If the beast smelled blood, it would all be over. Nomu's regeneration would turn this hunt into an endless cycle of pain.
The TN began to crawl. Somewhere nearby, metal clanked—an empty barrel, toppled over in the fall. He felt its edge, rolled over, and his fingers sank into the thick, oily liquid.
Fuel oil.
He didn't hesitate. He began rubbing it into himself—his palms, his neck, his face. Blindly, convulsively, unafraid of infecting his open wounds. The smell was sharp, chemical, suffocating—perfect. This industrial stench overwhelmed everything: sweat, fear, and the sweet aroma of fresh blood.
—Find me now...— he breathed into the void, feeling the sticky mask harden on his skin.
Somewhere ahead, a heavy, bone-crushing thud sounded against concrete. The ground shook. The tiger rose, ready to begin its harvest in the steel labyrinth of Hosu.
TN squeezed himself into an empty steel barrel, nearly howling as the oil burned his torn shoulder. There was little room above to breathe the acrid fumes, so he held his breath and closed the barrel lid. He was chest-deep in the shitty oil, holding his breath. Inside the barrel, the world narrowed to the smell of old oil and the frantic beat of his own heart, which seemed to echo loudly through all the iron.
The first blow resounded from behind the wall. Heavy. Wet.
The tiger was there. TN felt the vibrations of the beast's tread pass through the concrete, through the steel, and pierce his shattered bones. Through Quirk Vision, he saw the crimson glow of an alien whim freeze just half a meter away. The beast inhaled loudly, whistling, clearing its nostrils of extraneous noise.
Where the TN had touched the concrete after its fall, a trail of its life remained—drops of blood, particles of epithelium. The Tiger hovered over that spot. Its growl was low, almost infrasonic, causing the TN's insides to clench into a tight knot. But the fuel oil had taken its toll on the Beast. The sharp, chemical barrier cut off the main trace. The predator was confused: its prey had been here a moment ago, but now it smelled like dead, cold machinery.
A slow nuclear explosion was taking place inside Nomu's ripped-open skull. The command relay center had been destroyed, but in the deepest convolutions of the brain, where Kyudai Garaki had spent months burning out its personality, a phantom voice still throbbed.
Find... Return...? Destroy?...If destroy - who? This whisper echoed like flashes of pain in the exposed brain. The Tiger shook its head, spraying black ichor. He didn't understand why he was here. Why the salty air stung his wounds. His voice demanded obedience, but his instincts demanded release.
At that moment, the port of Hosu itself spoke up.
A couple hundred meters away, a gigantic harbor crane boomed heavily. Its steel cables tensed with a groan that sounded like a challenge in the night silence. The crane slowly lifted a multi-ton container, preparing to transfer it into the belly of the bulk carrier. Tiny figures of workers in orange vests flitted across the loading platform, illuminating the way with flashlights.
For Nomu-Tiger, that sound was a trigger.
He froze, his ears twitching in the direction of movement. A commanding voice in his head urged him to continue searching for the TN, but a primal rage, fueled by the pain of the destroyed relay, chose an easier target. Movement. Warmth. Life. The beast emitted a sound that was neither a roar nor a scream—it was the death rattle of humanity itself. It spun sharply, claws digging into the concrete, and took off. With each leap, it covered ten meters, becoming a black, blurry shadow against the gray containers.
TN, pressing his ear to the cold iron of the barrel, heard the heavy paws rapidly receding.
—No...— he croaked, feeling thick black liquid trickle down his cheek. —Not them.
He understood: Tiger had gone hunting. Not for food, not on orders. Simply because his twisted mind could no longer bear the silence. And now, between a group of unsuspecting dockworkers and the perfect killer, only he stood—a broken man in an oil-stained mask, running out of time.
The smell of fuel oil enveloped TN like a thick, motherly blanket. In that viscous, dark sludge, there was a strange sense of comfort—it muffled the sounds of the outside world, turning the roar of the port into a distant, dull heartbeat. TN felt like an embryo in the steel womb of the barrel. He wanted to just close his eyes and let this oily lullaby soothe the pain in his broken fingers and the nerves burning out from adrenaline. Let them handle it themselves. Let the world go to hell. He'd done enough. He was tired of being a hero, a villain, or anything at all.
—Just five more minutes... it's so quiet in here,— he thought as his consciousness began to fade.
But the silence inside him suddenly resonated with the silence of the life he had nearly lost. Kuinn's face flashed before his eyes—not frozen in terror, but in one of those rare moments of peace. She really had rewritten him. She had turned a broken tool into something living. UA hadn't just been a cover; it was his second birth. If he died now, allowing himself this weakness, then "Nomura" wouldn't be the one dying, nor would "TN." The very chance at humanity he had been given would die with him.
TN jerked violently, shattering the hypnotic peace of his oily prison. The barrel tipped over with a loud crash, spilling him onto the concrete along with a slick, black puddle.
— What the hell is wrong with me... — he rasped, wiping his face with a filthy forearm. Oil streaked down his cheeks like black tears. — What an egoistic prick I am. How can I just die for the sake of this fucking adrenaline, forgetting that the world doesn't revolve around my pain?
He looked at his trembling hands. Sugar Rush was still pulsing in his veins, but the timer in his head was ticking down relentlessly. Six minutes. At most. That was enough time to either save himself or light the final fire of his life.
...
Thirty meters above the ground, in the cabin of the shipping crane, Fukiyami wiped the sweat from his brow. The shift was almost over. Thoughts of home—his nagging wife, the kids who always needed attention and tuition money—usually exhausted him, but now, in the cold haze of the port, they felt like his only anchor to reality.
«I just want this to be over. One more block, a smoke break—then home,»— he thought, smoothly shifting the lever.
The work felt like a giant game of steel Tetris. The container descended slowly, fitting perfectly into the gap between two others. Fukiyami was already anticipating the taste of that first drag.
— Hey, Fukiyami! Stop stalling, let's go for a smoke! — his partner's voice drifted up from below.
— Just a sec, last one... — Fukiyami began to turn his head toward the window, already pulling out a cigarette, when his gaze landed on something that shouldn't have been in this cabin.
Outside the glass, clinging to the crane's steel frame with its claws, was it. A striped creature with an exposed, pulsating brain and eyes that reflected a primal, absolute horror. Its claws, massive and dull-gleaming in the searchlights, looked capable of peeling this crane open like a tin can.
Fukiyami froze. The world narrowed down to the tip of the cigarette clenched in his teeth. He didn't notice it slip from his mouth, hit the control panel, and—still glowing—roll onto the cabin floor, which was littered with oil-soaked rags.
The beast didn't wait. Seeing movement inside, it let out a deafening roar that made the glass vibrate. With one lightning-fast swipe, the Tiger severed the steel cables holding the container. The metal snapped with the shriek of a wounded animal.
The container, packed with tons of explosive sulfur, plummeted. The crane's cabin tilted, buckling under the weight of the creature. Fukiyami, driven by survival instinct, tore the door open and, without looking, leaped down into the dark, oily water of the bay.
The impact was catastrophic. The container clipped the side of a cargo ship, shearing off the plating and crushing the steel like tinfoil. A fountain of yellow sulfur dust erupted from the breach, settling on the deck and the water. And in the shattered cabin of the crane, the tiny spark of the forgotten cigarette finally touched the oily rags.
The flash was instantaneous. A small fire, born of human exhaustion, met the chemical fury of the sulfur. Port Hosu shuddered as the first explosion painted the night sky a sickly, toxic orange.
TN, kneeling by the overturned barrel, saw the mushroom cloud of fire blooming over the port. His six minutes were melting away even faster. Two fingers, twisted at an unnatural angle, prevented him from grabbing the crossbar to climb onto the container.
—Ouch. I forgot.— He exhaled sharply several times, grabbed them, and pushed them back into place.
Crunch.
—Mmm...— he groaned softly in pain.
TN stood on the roof of the container, breathing heavily. A civil defense siren blared around them—a drawn-out, mournful wail that pierced their ears. The port came alive, but it was life in agony. Workers ran for the exits, machines honked, trying to escape the danger zone.
«A strategic error, you brainless creature,» — TN thought, looking at the blazing crane. The loud explosion and fire had saved dozens of lives, prompting an immediate evacuation. Nomu had given itself away too early. Having cut off its connection with its master, this creature acts purely on animal instincts, without thinking or calculating ahead. This is its advantage over Nomu.
TN calculated the route. They were in Sector Two. Ahead lay twelve more zones, crammed with steel labyrinths. Sector Fourteen was the very edge, an open pier where the bay was at its deepest. TN remembered fragments of Garaki's reports: the heavy Nomu models had colossal muscle density. In water, they sank like cast-iron ingots. The salt water was corroding their exposed tissue, disrupting their regeneration.
—I'll lure you to the edge,— he decided. —We'll finish there.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a bright spot on the wall of the administrative building. A huge carbon dioxide fire extinguisher. Sugar Rush still had a head start, but the seconds were ticking away. Those trapped first.
«First the people. Then the beast.»
...
At the epicenter of the inferno, trapped between two blazing pools of oil, a forty-year-old dockworker named Tanaka was losing his mind. His partners, pressed against the container, were shouting something unintelligible, but Tanaka saw only one thing—a narrow strip of passageway not yet completely engulfed by flames.
—I won't die here! Not in this hole!— he roared.
—Tanaka, stop! It's too hot!— someone shouted from behind, but it was too late.
The man lunged forward. A second—and he found himself in the heat. The air turned to scorching glass, tearing at his lungs with every breath. His entire life flashed before his eyes in a split second: his wife's face, the smell of morning coffee, his daughter's graduation... All of it began to melt, char.
It seemed he had almost reached the saving island of concrete, free from the scorching sulfur and blazing oil. The corridor of his thoughts narrowed, and suddenly his legs gave way, realizing he wouldn't make it. Just ten more meters. Just ten more damn meters. At first, he'd been running like an Indian over searing coals, but now he realized he was suddenly losing control of his body. Pain and panic made his body shudder and fall onto the already sulfur-scorched concrete.
Then the pain came. Deafening, all-consuming. The wind blew, and the flames, fueled by the spilled sulfur, flared up with renewed vigor. Tanaka's clothes instantly caught fire. He fell to his knees, feeling the skin on his back tighten, turning to parchment. He had only one thought: —Please, let me just pass out before I burn alive.
Suddenly, the sky above him exploded into an icy white cloud.
The hiss of the fire extinguisher drowned out the roar of the fire. Tanaka felt the unbearable heat give way to the sharp, life-saving chill of carbon dioxide. Someone's strong hands, sticky with fuel oil, grabbed him by the collar and literally yanked him out of the ring of fire.
TN threw the man onto the relatively safe concrete and immediately aimed the fire extinguisher at the two remaining workers.
...
1 minute ago
TN jumped down, his legs aching, but Sugar Rush still kept him afloat. He waded through a curtain of toxic smoke. His Quirk Vision was at its limit: he saw three pulsating life nodes through the steel walls of the containers.
Port workers. Three of them.
They were trapped in a dead end between two five-story-high stacks of containers. On one side was burning oil spreading across the water, on the other a cloud of smoldering sulfur, its acrid smoke searing their lungs. Jumping into the water would be suicide—the surface of the bay had turned into a blazing, boiling pool.
TN lunged for the office wall, tore off a fire extinguisher and its mount, and heard gunshots from the depths of the port.
Was there contact between the police and the Nomu?
Quickly returning to the epicenter of the fire, he found a man desperately running right through burning sulfur. The acrid yellow smoke quickly knocked him off his feet, and he began to choke, suffering from burns. He quickly blasted a path through the toxic sulfur with the foam from the fire extinguisher and pulled the man away.
There were still two dockers left.
—This is the end... We're trapped!— one of them shouted, trying to be heard over the roar of the flames. —We can't get down from above, there's a smooth wall!
At that moment, like a demon from a nightmare, TN emerged from the smoke directly above them, having previously climbed onto the containers.
He was barely recognizable as a man. His everyday clothes were threadbare, torn to shreds in some places. There were a couple of stains of black oil on his face, which he tried to wipe off, but only managed to smear it across his skin. His violet eyes glowed in the darkness with a noble light.
—Fuck... another monster!— the senior worker screamed, recoiling in horror.
—Shut up, he's just a regular guy!— the senior dockworker chided him.
The guy jumped into a trap of containers, fire, and smoke.
—Shut your mouths and breathe through these rags,—TN ordered. He had previously torn his white shirt into rags, soaked them with water from the street cooler, and handed them out just in time. Another cloud of acrid smoke swept between the containers and the workers. He didn't waste time explaining. The workers parted, behind TN.
TN pulled the fire extinguisher lever. A stream of icy white gas and foam hit the burning oil, momentarily knocking down the flames and creating a narrow, hissing corridor amid the fire.
—Now! Straight through the foam! To the administrative building, there's a fire exit to the road!— TN commanded.
—W-who are you? Are you one of the heroes?— the young man stuttered, running past TN, smelling the stench of fuel oil and blood.
TN didn't even turn his head. He held the stream, feeling the canister empty and the fire behind him begin to close in again.
When the last worker disappeared into the shadows of the office building, TN tossed the empty canister aside. It hit the concrete with a dull clang. Six minutes turned into three.
TN scanned the area again with his unique vision: The first thing he noticed was two workers dragging a wounded man away toward the office, and the second thing he saw was Nomu running into the indoor storage facility. Desperate police officers blocked his path. If he doesn't intervene, there will be casualties among the police, and then Nomu will break into the only shelter for the remaining group of people in the port.
***
The air in the port of Hosu turned into a simmering soup of sulfur, fuel oil, and panic. Monika Kanyashiki, an Osaka police detective temporarily assigned to the local station, understood that hierarchy was the only thing keeping people from rushing into the burning waters of the bay.
Sector C-10
—Everyone, listen to me!— Monika's voice cut through the roar of the flames. She stood on the loading dock of Warehouse No. 4, directing the officers. —Sergeant, distribute the men along the perimeter! Civilians, back behind the stacks of empty pallets.
Police, disoriented by the smoke, began to converge on her. A group of twelve patrol officers and about thirty port workers huddled together. The fire from the exploding sulfur container had cut off the main route to the checkpoint. Now the warehouse had become their temporary fortress, but a fortress surrounded by a wall of fire.
Sergeant Sato, a heavyset man with short gray hair, approached Monica, adjusting his holster. A strange, inappropriate smirk played across his face—a mixture of old-school confidence and an attempt to hide his nervousness. In his eyes, it was simply "another big fire."
—Easy there, Detective, I don't think it's anything serious.— Sato said, stepping closer, invading her personal space. —Equipment breaks down, cranes fall. It's commonplace for the night shift in this old place. You probably just shuffled papers in offices back in Osaka, but here, it's real man's work. Maybe when the fire's out and we get out of here, I can show you a couple of places in Tokyo that make the best ramen?
Monica gave him an icy look. The flames reflected in her eyes, and Sato fell silent for a second.
—Sergeant Sato,— she said, enunciating each word. —Your job is to hold the gate and ensure no one panics. Don't take any initiative, don't go outside without my orders. And keep your fantasies to yourself.
Pshh...— came the radio. —This is Detective Tsukauchi speaking. Monika, what happened at Port Hosu?!
The girl pulled out her radio and began reporting the situation. —A major fire near the third pier. Apparently, something happened that caused the industrial sulfur to ignite. Await further information. The escape route is cut off by the massive fire.
Boom.
...an explosion was heard in the distance, a whole row of containers landed with a booming sound and smashed onto the concrete... —something is still detonating. The civilians on our side have taken shelter in a closed warehouse.
At that moment, the wind suddenly changed direction. A huge cloud of acrid, poisonous yellow smoke enveloped the platform. People began coughing hysterically.
—Close it!— Monica shouted. —Get deeper into the warehouse, now!
The heavy automatic gates began to slowly descend, cutting them off from the outside world. Sato, coughing and spitting, ordered his men to take up positions at the emergency exits.
Monica didn't go inside. She quickly soaked a piece of cloth with water from her canteen, tied it tightly around her face, and slipped through the narrow gap before the gates touched the concrete.
—So...what do we do now?— one of the officers asked very quietly, when the shouting and other noise had died down considerably after the gates closed.
—Hmmm. The fire must be really bad. There's a risk of explosion if it's sulfur. Everyone stay away from the windows.—Sergeant Sato continued commanding.
—Are we really going to leave Detective Monica alone?— A junior officer approached the Sergeant; the man could barely recall the man's name.
—Toshi. I...— The Sergeant led him a little further away from the others and began to speak more quietly. —I'm not happy with this situation myself, but orders are orders. Besides, I think it's just a fire. It's common in industry, but caution doesn't hurt.—The Sergeant turned his back on Toshi, stood for a moment, pondering and hesitating, and then turned back.
—You know what? Keep an eye on her. Just don't breathe in the smoke.
Sector C-9
—What the hell has gotten into Sato?... A moron. A cocky, pompous ass,— Monica's thoughts pulsed in time with her labored pace. She crouched low to the concrete, where the layer of gray smoke, smelling of burnt rubber, was slightly less dense. Sato and his tackling now seemed like something from a past life, out of place and dirty, like a stain of fuel oil on a clean report.
The crane explosion was no accident. Monica felt it in her gut—too timely, too destructive. It was a surgical strike on the port's logistics, designed to create chaos.
She raced through the gray haze. The containers, lined up in endless rows, resembled the backs of sleeping leviathans in this fog, ready to crush anyone who disturbed their peace. Suddenly, three people emerged from the haze.
The workers weren't running—they were fleeing. One of them tripped, his knees skidding across the crumbling concrete, but he didn't even cry out, jumping up immediately. His face was gray, as if he'd been dipped in ash, and his eyes... nothing remained in them but animal terror.
—To the warehouse! Sector C-10!— Monica grabbed one of them by the shoulder, nearly knocking him off his feet. —Police are there! There's a cordon, get into the light!
The man didn't even focus on her. He jerked as if electrocuted, his fingers digging into the sleeve of her uniform.
—Striped...— he croaked, a stream of soot flying from his mouth. —Striped devil... he eats them... he just tears them apart!
He broke free and disappeared into the fog before she could ask. Monica watched them go with a heavy gaze. «Striped devil?» She hoped that Sato, for all his stupidity, was professional enough not to open fire on the terrified civilians.
Sector C-8:
The transition to the next sector was a physical sensation. The smoke had thinned strangely here, pinned to the ground by a heavy, damp silence. The roar of the fire faded into the background, replaced by the barely audible hiss of gas leaking from the pipes.
At the edge of Sector C-8, Monica braked sharply. Her boots slipped on something slippery.
Two people lay at the foot of a bright blue container.
It wasn't just a scene of death—it was a scene of carnage. Police uniforms, torn to shreds, barely held together what remained of the people. All around, in the dim light of the distant fires, spent shells glinted like cold sparks. Dozens of them. The entire magazine had been dumped into emptiness, or something that refused to die.
Monica recognized them.
Young Officer Kato. The same guy who, just yesterday morning, beaming with happiness, had shown her a blurry photo of her newborn son on his phone.
Sergeant Miura. A veteran who knew every nook and cranny of this port like the back of his hand.
A hot, acrid lump rose in her throat. Monica exhaled convulsively through her mouth, covering her face with her hand. This wasn't human work. The limbs were twisted at angles that defied anatomy. The heavy steel door of the container nearby had been ripped from its hinges like a sheet of paper, and deep, jagged grooves adorned it. There were several bullet holes and claw marks on the container's casing. Five parallel stripes, embedded a good three inches into the metal.
Her sadness instantly crystallized into icy calm. No more indecision. The urge to vomit gave way to a cold burning sensation in her chest. She straightened, her movements becoming frighteningly precise. Her hand settled on the handle of her service pistol, and the fingers of her other hand curled habitually, activating her quirk—the air around her palm vibrated faintly, ready to cut through steel.
—It's not a fire. And it's not just a villain. It's a hunter,— she concluded silently.
The fire was just noise to hide the screams. Whoever did this still wandered among these iron coffins. And Monica intended to find them before the list of victims grew to include the names of her people.