The air stank of copper and oil.
Takuma crouched behind a rusted dumpster in the back alleys of District 9, the kind of place where sunlight rarely touched the pavement. The shadows here didn't whisper—they watched. The buildings leaned close, too close, like they were listening in on what came next.
The street was too quiet.
Too clean. No graffiti. No broken bottles. No piss-stained cardboard nests from the homeless. That was the first sign.
The second was the smell. Not just the rust—but blood.
Takuma's pulse quickened. Every instinct screamed for him to run.
"I said STAY BACK!"
Aoi's voice.
And then: screaming.
Takuma snapped around the corner and saw her.Half her body coated in glowing aurora light, she stood her ground in the center of a cracked loading zone. Her breathing was heavy, defiant, her stance wide—wounded, but not broken.
Three villains circled her.
The first was huge, bald, arms bloated with muscle and veins, shirtless and smeared with dried blood. A cybernetic jaw clicked with every breath. The second was wiry, twitchy, constantly vibrating, his fingers flicking in and out of visibility—a speed-type, likely. The third was quiet, cloaked in matte black, his eyes dull and vacant, but Takuma knew immediately: he was the ringleader.
And behind him, slumped against the wall—
A fourth figure. Bound. Bloody. Silent.
Takuma recognized her uniform.
Another student from Aoi's class? No… no, she came here alone. So who—
The bald one lunged.
Aoi lit up like a flare, slamming her palm into the man's chest. Light exploded in a pulse of color, slamming him back, sending him crashing through a stack of pallets.
But it wasn't enough.
The speedster darted in behind her, jabbing two quick hits to her ribs before vanishing again. She staggered, caught herself, turned—too slow.
The cloaked one raised a hand.
And then it happened.
The light shattered.
Aoi's Quirk flickered—then snuffed out. She gasped, choking, clutching at her chest like something had been ripped away. Takuma's eyes widened.
A Quirk nullifier? No… it felt different. Like he dampened her core entirely.
She dropped to one knee, teeth gritted.
The bald villain recovered. Speedster reappeared beside him. They moved as one. And Takuma—helpless, frozen—watched them close in.
The next five minutes felt like five lifetimes.
They beat her. Methodically. Strategically. Ripping away the hero name she hadn't even earned yet.
She fought like hell—biting, clawing, even swinging a piece of pipe at one point—but they were ready for her. They weren't just thugs. They had training.
And worse: they were enjoying it.
Takuma's nails dug into his palms hard enough to bleed. His whole body trembled. Something was building beneath his skin, something hot and alive, but alien—like a scream trying to crawl out of his bones.
He tried to move. His body wouldn't listen.
Then the cloaked one spoke.
"You know what the problem is with hero girls like you?""You think you're untouchable.""But out here... you're just meat."
Takuma's breath caught.
The next sound was a zipper.
He didn't look away.
He wanted to. Everything inside him screamed to turn his head, shut his eyes, scream, do something—but he didn't.
Aoi locked eyes with him through her bloody bangs. Somehow, she'd seen him.
She smiled.
It was barely there. It hurt. But it was hers.
"Stay hidden.""Live."
He would never forgive her for it.
Time fractured.
He wasn't sure when she stopped breathing. Only that the men eventually left, laughing, kicking her broken body one last time for good measure. They didn't even check the shadows.
Why would they?
Who would care about a scrawny, silent boy with no Quirk?
He stumbled to her.
The pavement soaked his knees. Her blood was sticky, still warm. Her body trembled faintly—nerves firing after death.
Her lips were parted. Her eyes half-lidded. Her fingers reaching… toward him.
He took her hand.
It didn't grip back.
Something inside him snapped—not a clean break, but a deep rupture, like the earth shifting beneath its crust.
The air thickened.
Smoke began to coil from his skin—first his fingers, then his arms, the tendrils slow and unsure, like steam rising from cracked pavement after rain. It seeped from beneath his nails, from the tiny cuts on his knuckles, from the pores of his palms. It didn't choke—it clung.
He stared at his hands.
The asphalt beneath him trembled. The rusted dumpster behind him groaned, warping inward as if pulled by something unseen.
And then he felt it.
Something in the air—the essence of the smoke, of soot and cinders—was being drawn into him. It slid into his arms like water into dry soil. His skin tingled. His veins burned.
Not with pain.
With recognition.
It didn't make sense.
He had no Quirk. Always had been told he was quirkless. So what was this?
The answer didn't come. But the power did.
It curled inside him—raw, unrefined, angry. The smoke that clung to his skin began to spin, swirl, and then lash out in sudden coils, striking the ground, tearing shallow rips through the pavement.
And in the middle of it all, Takuma knelt—breathing in the ash, feeling the weight of something new settle into his arms like shackles made of fire and grief.
He gasped once—shallow, ragged—and the world tilted sideways.
His head slumped against Aoi's shoulder, his vision already fading into black and gray and flame.
And then there was nothing.