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(9 Advanced Chapters)
~~~~~
The alarm on Kaito's phone went off at 6:00 AM. It was a standard electronic tone. He didn't hit snooze. He sat up, the air in the Shizuoka apartment feeling thin and cold. He had two days before he moved to the dormitory-style housing near the Higashi Distribution Center in Musutafu.
Kaito walked to the bathroom. The mirror was cheap glass that slightly distorted his reflection. He looked at his face. He looked tired. He had manually suppressing his cellular regeneration to ensure the dark circles under his eyes looked authentic. A "normal guy" with a 180,000-yen salary shouldn't look like a god. He should look like a man who was worried about his electricity bill.
Kaito dressed in the white shirt and dark slacks he had bought from a discount retailer. The shirt was 100% polyester. It felt like plastic against his skin. It didn't breathe.
Within ten minutes of putting it on, he could feel his body heat being trapped against his torso. The slacks were slightly too long, causing the fabric to bunch at his ankles.
"Kaito, breakfast," Saki called from the kitchen.
He walked out. There was a bowl of miso soup and a piece of salted mackerel.
"I'll be back at 7:00 PM," Kaito said, picking up his chopsticks.
"Don't forget your bag. And don't stand out," Saki said. She didn't look up from the newspaper. "The first day is when people decide if they like you or if they want to give you their extra work. Be invisible."
"I know."
He finished the meal in four minutes. He rinsed his bowl, dried it, and placed it in the rack. He picked up his briefcase—a vinyl imitation leather bag that smelled like chemicals—and left the house.
-----
The walk to the station took twelve minutes. The humidity was already rising. By the time he reached the platform, a line of sweat had formed between his shoulder blades. The polyester shirt absorbed none of it. It just felt damp.
The train arrived. It was the morning rush. Kaito was pushed into the carriage by the sheer volume of the crowd. He ended up pressed against a metal pole near the door.
To his left, a salaryman was coughing into a mask. To his right, a student was playing a mobile game with the volume turned up just enough to be audible.
Kaito closed his eyes. He didn't use his power to move the air. He didn't use his mastery to create a pocket of space. He endured the physical contact. He felt the vibration of the tracks through the soles of his shoes. The shoes were too thin. He could feel every imperfection in the floor of the train.
At 8:20 AM, he exited at the Higashi Logistics station.
The distribution center was a massive concrete block surrounded by a chain-link fence. Trucks were idling at the loading docks, releasing thick clouds of diesel exhaust. The smell was heavy. It stuck to the back of his throat.
He walked to the security gate.
"Arisaka, Kaito. New hire," he said to the guard.
The guard checked a clipboard. "Junior Clerk. Orientation is in Building B, Room 204. Follow the yellow line on the floor."
Kaito followed the line. The hallway was lit by flickering fluorescent tubes. One of them was failing, creating a high-pitched buzzing sound that Kaito's ears registered as a 15,000 Hz tone. It was a constant irritation.
Room 204 was a windowless box with ten desks. Nine other people were already there. They all looked like him—young, dressed in cheap suits, and nervous.
Sato walked in at 8:30 AM. He looked worse than he had sounded on the phone. His tie was crooked and he had a coffee stain on his thumb.
"Listen up," Mato said, slamming a stack of paper folders onto the lead desk. "You're here because you're cheap and you have a pulse. This is the Higashi Distribution Center. We handle 10,000 units of hero-support gear a day. Everything from kinetic dampeners to flame-retardant spandex. Every item has a serial number. Every serial number has to be matched to a shipping manifest."
Mato pointed to the computers on the desks. They were bulky, beige units from ten years ago.
"The system is old," Mato continued. "It crashes if you type too fast. It loses data if you don't save every ten minutes. Your job is to take these paper manifests, verify the stamps, and input the data into the national registry. If you make a mistake, the HPSC flags us. If the HPSC flags us, I get a headache. If I get a headache, you're fired. Any questions?"
No one spoke.
"Good. Arisaka, you're on Station 9. Start with the 'Class-C' consumables. Get to work."
Kaito sat at Station 9. He turned on the monitor. It took two minutes to boot up. The screen had a low refresh rate that caused a slight flicker. To a normal person, it was eye strain. To Kaito, it was like watching a movie frame-by-frame.
He opened the first folder. It was a list of medical-grade bandages designed for Recovery Girl's sidekicks.
Serial Number: 8892-XJ-01.
Quantity: 500.
Destination: Central General Hospital.
He began to type.
He purposely moved his fingers at a sluggish pace. He looked at the keyboard occasionally to simulate a lack of muscle memory. He waited for the cursor to catch up to his input.
-----
By 10:00 AM, his lower back began to ache. The chair had no lumbar support. It was a hard plastic shell on a metal frame. He shifted his weight. The floor was covered in grey carpet tiles that were matted with dust.
'180,000 yen' Kaito thought. '1,125 yen per hour. I am trading sixty minutes of my life for the price of a bowl of ramen and a bus ticket.'
The inefficiency was the worst part. The software was poorly coded. To enter one line of data, he had to click through three different sub-menus. It was a waste of processing power. It was trash logic.
-----
At 11:30 AM, the building shook.
A low, heavy boom echoed from the west. The windows in the hallway rattled. Kaito didn't move his head, but his internal sensors registered a seismic vibration of 3.2 on the Richter scale.
"What was that?" a girl at the next desk asked, her voice high with anxiety.
"Probably a villain fight," a guy replied. "Endeavor is patrolling the district today."
Kaito kept typing.
Serial Number: 4412-LK-09.
Quantity: 12.
Then the heat started.
It began as a subtle warmth coming through the ventilation ducts. Within five minutes, the air in the windowless room became stagnant. The old air conditioning unit in the ceiling made a grinding noise and stopped.
"Is it getting hot in here?" someone complained.
Kaito felt the temperature rise.
25 degrees.
28 degrees.
30 degrees.
Through the walls, Kaito could hear the sound of roaring. It wasn't an animal; it was the sound of high-pressure combustion.
Endeavor was less than two blocks away. He was likely using his flames at 60% output. The thermal radiation was bleeding through the concrete walls of the warehouse.
The room hit 35 degrees.
Kaito's polyester shirt was now a liability. It was sticking to his chest. The sweat had nowhere to go. He could feel the salt stinging the pores on his neck.
Kaito looked at his monitor. A red warning box appeared on the screen.
System Temperature Critical. Please Shut Down to Avoid Data Loss.
Kaito looked around. The other clerks were fanning themselves with their folders. Mato walked into the room, his face bright red.
"Don't stop!" Mato yelled. "The HPSC doesn't care about the weather! Keep inputting!"
"The computers are freezing up, Mato-san!" the girl yelled back. "The fans are screaming!"
Kaito looked at his own screen. The cursor was lagging by three seconds now. The logic gates in the computer's CPU were slowing down due to the heat. If he continued, the database would corrupt. He would lose his morning's work. He would have to stay late.
Staying late meant missing the 5:15 PM train. Missing the train meant less time in his "Sanctuary" basement.
This is a service interruption, Kaito thought. This is an illogical waste of resources.
He stood up.
"Arisaka! Where are you going?" Sato barked.
"Restroom," Kaito said. His voice was flat.
"The heat is making me nauseous."
"Make it fast! We're behind schedule!"
Kaito walked out of the room. The hallway was even hotter. The air smelled like scorched asphalt. He walked past the restrooms and headed toward the emergency exit at the end of the building. He pushed the bar and stepped outside.
The heat hit him like a physical blow. The street was obscured by a thick, orange haze. Two blocks away, a massive villain made of scrap metal and reinforced steel was swinging a crane arm.
-----
Endeavor was a blur of white-hot fire, circling the villain and blasting it with concentrated heat.
Every time Endeavor fired, the air temperature in the street jumped by ten degrees.
Kaito stood in the shadows of the loading dock.
He looked at his watch. 11:45 AM.
He looked at the warehouse. The server room for Higashi Logistics was located on the second floor, directly facing the battle.
If Endeavor used a "Prominence Burn," the thermal shock would shatter the windows and melt the server racks.
Kaito reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, grey mask he had fashioned from a piece of industrial filter. He put it on. He pulled his hood up.
He performed the Update.
The transition was silent. The cheap polyester suit vanished, replaced by the matte white fabric of Hero X's silhouette. The heat of the street no longer touched him. His internal temperature was locked at 20 degrees.
Kaito stepped out from the shadows.
He didn't run. He walked toward the center of the intersection.
Endeavor was shouting. "Flashfire Fist: Jet Burn!"
A massive wave of flame erupted from Endeavor's arm, slamming into the scrap villain.
The shockwave blew out the windows of a nearby convenience store. The heat rose to a level that began to soften the plastic signs on the street.
Hero X stopped fifty meters behind Endeavor.
Kaito didn't look at the hero. He looked at the air molecules between Endeavor and the Higashi building.
They were vibrating too fast. The entropy was too high.
Kaito raised his right hand. He didn't use a magical gesture. He used a command.
'Edit: Thermal Conductivity. Set Value: 0.'
SNAP
He flicked his fingers.
The sound wasn't loud. It was a sharp crack that cut through the roar of the fire.
Suddenly, the heat vanished.
The fire was still there. Endeavor was still glowing. The flames were still orange and bright.
But the energy they were releasing was no longer being transferred to the air. It was as if a vacuum had been placed around the fire.
The temperature in the street dropped from 60 degrees to 15 degrees in one second.
The scrap villain, which had been glowing red from the heat, suddenly turned grey as its thermal energy was deleted. It became brittle.
When Endeavor's next punch landed, the metal didn't melt—it shattered like glass.
Endeavor stumbled. He looked at his own flames. They were still active, but he couldn't feel the warmth on his skin. He looked at the pavement. The puddles of melted tar had instantly solidified.
"What...?" Endeavor growled, his voice muffled by the sudden silence of the air.
Hero X stood in the middle of the road.
A drone whirred overhead. It was a small, modified unit with a high-definition lens. In a basement across town, Hideki stared at his screen.
"I got it," Hideki whispered, his hands trembling on the controller. "I got him."
The camera caught ten seconds of footage: the silhouette that had been gone for a while, standing in a dead zone of cold air while the Number Two Hero stood surrounded by silent, useless fire.
Hero X didn't look at the camera. He didn't look at Endeavor.
He turned around and walked back into the alleyway.
"X?" Endeavor mumbled, and a silent rage boiling inside him. The fire in his body kept flickering.
-----
Inside the utility closet of the warehouse, Kaito Updated back into his polyester suit. He checked his tie. It was straight. He checked his pulse. 70 beats per minute.
He walked back into the office.
The room was cool. The air conditioning hadn't turned back on, but the air felt like it was being filtered through ice. The clerks were staring out the window, confused.
"The fire... it's still there, but it's not hot anymore," the girl whispered.
Sato was poking at the AC unit. "I don't care why it's cold! The computers are back up! Get to your desks!"
Kaito sat at Station 9. The red warning box on his screen had vanished. The system was running at peak efficiency.
He began to type.
Serial Number: 9928-BQ-04. Quantity: 100.
He worked for the next five hours. He didn't look at the news.
He didn't join the gossip about "Hero X" that had appeared during Endeavor's fight. He simply processed the manifests.
Because the system was now running without thermal lag, he finished his assigned folders by 4:45 PM.
He stood up and walked to Sato's desk.
"I'm finished for the day, Sato-san," Kaito said.
Sato looked at the stack of completed folders. He looked at the clock.
"Already? Most clerks take until 6:00 PM to finish the Class-C pile."
"I was efficient," Kaito said.
"Fine. Check out at the gate. See you tomorrow at 8:30."
Kaito walked out of the building. The sun was setting, casting long, sharp shadows across the concrete. The smell of diesel was still there, but the air was quiet.
He reached the station and boarded the 5:15 PM train.
He found a seat this time. He sat down and opened his phone.
The top trending topic on the news apps was already there:
["HERO X RETURNS? ENDEAVOR'S FLAMES NEUTRALIZED BY LEGENDARY SILHOUETTE."]
Mainstream news anchors used words like "unknown entity" and "unidentified quirk user," still trying to hide the truth. But on the forums, there was no doubt. The name Hero X was everywhere.
Kaito scrolled past it. He opened his banking app.
Current Balance: 12,400 yen.
He looked at the number. After he paid for his move to Musutafu and his first month's groceries, he would have nothing left. 180,000 yen a month was a survival wage. It was the wage of a "normal salaryman."
It was a logistical error and a decision made.
If he stayed a Junior Clerk, he would spend the next years tired, hungry, and dressed in cheap polyester.
Kaito would have to deal with people like Mato every day. He would have to deal with old equipment that crashed because a hero was having a tantrum nearby.
He looked at the reflection of his own eyes in the darkened train window.
'I should not be a clerk', Kaito thought. 'I should become a Specialist. I need a better contract. A massive blunder on my part.'
He closed the news app. He didn't care about the Hero X hype. He cared about his 9-5 peace. And peace was expensive.
Kaito decided that tomorrow, he would work a bit faster. He would show Mato exactly how "efficient" a below-average graduate could be.
-----
Kaito reached his stop. He walked home.
He ate dinner with Saki. They didn't talk about the news. They talked about the price of radishes.
At 10:00 PM, Kaito went to the basement. He sat on the floor and began to sort the last of the hex nuts.
The countdown was at 2,554 days.
The "Junior Clerk" suit was already too small. He needed the Haken Specialist life. Silence. High-spec quality. Peace.
Kaito closed his eyes and let the silence of the basement wash over him.
The world was loud. Endeavor was roaring. Hideki was uploading.
But Kaito Arisaka was just a man with a blister on his heel and a plan for a better paycheck.
-----
[Author's Note]
In this chapter, we see the beginning of Kaito's "Starting Phase" in the adult world. He chose the Junior Documentation Clerk role because, on paper, it is the ultimate "nobody" job.
The "Active X" emerges. Kaito isn't just hiding; he's muting the world's inefficiencies. To him, Endeavor isn't a hero—he's a thermal glitch that was slowing down his data entry.
However, Kaito, a High-Spec entity who values logic and silence, quickly realizes he has made a massive tactical error.
To Kaito, Inefficiency is physical pain. Working on 10-year-old hardware in a 40-degree office isn't just uncomfortable; it's a "Service Interruption" to his existence.
••
What is a Haken Specialist?
In Japan, a Haken (派遣) is a dispatch or agency-contract worker. While a "Junior Clerk" is a bottom-tier temp, a Haken Specialist is a high-level professional brought in to fix specific, high-stakes problems. They are paid significantly more, work strictly defined hours, and most importantly for Kaito, they are respected enough to be left alone.
Kaito is realizing that to stay "normal," he doesn't need to be at the bottom; he needs to be so good that he's indispensable but normal.
The move to the Haken Specialist role in the coming chapters isn't about ambition, it's about buying his way into a quiet, high-spec life where no one dares to disturb his 9-5 peace.