The world reacts before I can vanish.
Cameras catch only fragments:a figure of light, a cyclone tearing the clouds apart, a facility collapsing under invisible weight.The footage runs on every screen in Japan before the smoke clears.Within an hour, the Commission declares a "containment breach by an unregistered entity."Within two, the Hero Network labels it a terrorist event.
By the third hour, I'm a myth.The kind people argue about online — savior, monster, weapon, ghost.
I land miles away, deep in the forest north of Musutafu.The air smells of pine and rain. The ground gives softly under my feet.For a long while, I just breathe — a luxury I'd forgotten.
Freedom is quiet when it's real. Not empty. Not cold. Just… still.
The storm inside me hums low, tired but alive.For the first time, it feels less like a burden and more like a pulse that belongs here.
I find a stream and crouch beside it. My reflection looks like a stranger — silver-tipped hair tangled, eyes too bright, skin pale from confinement.The man who looks back at me is both weapon and survivor.
I whisper to him, "You're free. Now what?"
He doesn't answer.
By nightfall, the world has already begun to hunt.I sense it — helicopters slicing through the upper air, heat signatures moving like predators across the hills.
The Commission's reach is long.But the heroes?They're faster.
A light flares in the distance — bright, white, deliberate.Not a searchlight. A signal.
I approach cautiously, air wrapped close around me, ready to vanish.
A voice drifts from the clearing ahead."You took your time."
Aizawa stands by a half-burned tree, his scarf frayed, eyes tired in a way that only comes from lying to authority.
"You followed me."
"I didn't need to," he says. "Half the country's been chasing your signature. I just chose to be the first to find you."
"That sounds like a bad career decision."
He exhales smoke from a cigarette that wasn't there a moment ago. "Probably. But I've made worse."
He looks at me for a long moment. "You destroyed a government building."
"It was a prison."
"Same thing," he mutters. "Just depends on who built it."
He tosses the cigarette into the mud, grinding it out with his heel. "You killed no one. You could've. That means you're still choosing."
"I didn't do it for mercy."
"I know. But it still counts."
The silence that follows isn't heavy. It's fragile.Two people who've run out of pretending they understand peace.
Aizawa finally says, "They'll call you dangerous. They'll send heroes after you."
"You'll be one of them?"
He doesn't answer immediately. Then, "I'll make sure they take their time."
"Why?"
"Because I saw you stop," he says. "Most people like you never do."
We walk. The forest swallows the sound of our footsteps.When we reach a ridge overlooking the city lights, Aizawa stops.
"Nezu's working damage control," he says. "He's arguing that you acted under duress. The Commission wants you declared rogue. The public wants a story. You're it."
"Let them write what they need."
"Is that your plan? To vanish and let them shape what's left?"
"Stories aren't chains. They're smoke. They fade."
He sighs. "You really believe that?"
"I have to."
We stand there a while, the city blinking far below — a constellation made by hands instead of stars.
Aizawa turns to leave. "If you're staying near Musutafu, keep off the main routes. I can only cover for so long."
"You shouldn't cover at all."
"Too late," he says, and disappears into the trees.
Alone again.
The storm inside me is restless. It wants motion, but not destruction — not yet.I let it stretch, feeling the pressure ripple through the forest, the branches bending slightly as the wind follows my breathing.
From the valley below, I see the faint shimmer of light — the city reacting, organizing, chasing.
They'll come again. They always do.But for the first time, I don't feel hunted.
I feel ahead.
Hours later, I find shelter in an abandoned watchtower overlooking the valley. The interior smells of dust and iron.Someone once left notebooks here — pages yellowed, ink smudged. I tear one free, find a working pen, and start to write.
Kazen Arashi. Property of no one. Current location: unknown. Objective: undefined.Observation: heroes protect order. I protect possibility.
The words steady my hands. They make the silence bearable.Writing turns survival into purpose, even if no one reads it.
Just before dawn, the storm stirs again — faint ripples moving through the air outside.Not soldiers. Not drones.Something else.
I step onto the balcony, eyes narrowing against the gray light.
A figure moves through the trees — tall, wrapped in a coat of deep blue, silver hair gleaming faintly.Daichi Arashi.
The father I never knew.
He stops at the base of the tower and looks up. "You didn't wait for me."
"I don't wait for anyone."
He smiles faintly. "You're consistent. That's something."
"They said you worked with them."
"I did. Long enough to know what they want."
"And you still came here."
"I came because they'll send others now. Stronger ones. And because you need to know something."
I watch him climb, each step deliberate, unhurried. When he reaches the top, he doesn't speak right away.He looks out over the valley — the smoke in the distance, the faint echo of sirens.
"They're calling you The Storm That Escaped," he says. "The public's obsessed. Half of them think you're the end of an age. The other half think you're its beginning."
"They're both wrong."
"Maybe. But every era needs a symbol."
"I'm not their symbol."
He meets my eyes. "Then be something they can't define."
The words hang between us, heavier than the wind.
We watch the sun break through the horizon, light spilling over a world that already wants to forget what happened yesterday.The clouds shift, glowing gold at their edges.
Daichi murmurs, almost to himself, "This world was built on control. If you break it, make sure you build something better from the ruins."
"And if I can't?"
"Then at least remind them what freedom sounded like."
He turns to leave, his figure fading into mist as quietly as he appeared.
I stay until the sun fully rises, painting the valley in colors too bright to belong to a cage.Then I breathe.The wind answers, soft and vast, carrying away the last of the smoke.
"Freedom has no shape," I whisper. "But maybe, this time, it can have a direction."
The air bends around me — gentle, alive, infinite.
And somewhere in the distance, the heroes begin their search again.