Chapter 35

Chapter 35

As it turned out, once you got used to Amajiki-senpai's quirks, he was actually pretty interesting... especially after Kirisame learned that his Quirk allowed him to gain abilities by eating things, she enthusiastically recommended her hometown's man-eating clam soup and giant human-faced bug burgers to him.

...It scared him half to death.

After the Sports Festival, the school gave two days off. According to Aizawa-sensei, this was the time when Pro Hero agencies would be recruiting, though it didn't really concern Kirisame.

Two days off meant you could get a lot done.

—For instance, occasionally fulfilling her duties as a member of Libra.

The regular Libra members, including the boss, were mainly working here on a lead: traces of a leaked drug called Angel Scale had been spotted by the Pro Hero Nighteye two days ago.

This was a drug cooked up with ultra-high-level spells, capable of temporarily jacking up the user's senses like crazy while enhancing abilities including physical strength and recovery. Due to its powerful "body-modifying" effects, this drug could go for tens of thousands of bucks a gram on the underground black market of the otherworld.

There had been a brief incident of Angel Scale leaking into the human world before. What Kirisame remembered most was the footage Mr. Steven brought back, showing some junkie who, even after getting his head chopped off, was still kicking.

—It was as if it temporarily granted humans the physical abilities of a Blood Clan member.

That whole thing ended with the boss playing ninety-nine hours of demon chess with a high-ranking being in the otherworld to obtain intel and block the leak.

But now, it looked like it was far from over.

Dusk settled in, and the colorful lights from street-side shop windows couldn't keep anyone around in the cold, steady rain. Umbrellas popped open, like they were carving out little worlds, giving the hurried passersby a tiny sense of safety in their own bubble.

Nobody wanted to hang around in this weather, and even fewer were willing to extend any part of their body, even their gaze, from under the umbrella's edge.

A flash of pitch-black light sliced through the night.

Something was moving at high speed. Though it was a silent, rainy night, the thing moved with a sneaky, frantic energy.

Angel Scale worked by using spells to completely scramble and rearrange the elements that originally composed the body. The rearranged body was so messed up it was barely recognizable.

...His skin was all sunken in, pale veins withered and knotted together, making the guy, for all his crazy speed and power, look like he was having a last-minute rally before kicking the bucket, as if on the verge of collapsing from the inside at any moment.

And yeah, he felt like he was about to blow. The drug had jacked up his senses so much he couldn't control them. His heartbeat, the gurgle of blood in his veins, the wind, the rain hitting the umbrella, the startled honk of a car owner as he darted across the road... a flood of noise slammed into his brain, bashing against his thin, fragile skull.

He even felt like his eyeballs were about to pop out any minute.

His overworked windpipe felt like it was about to explode. He wheezed like a broken bellows, scrambling and rolling as he jumped between buildings, leaving deep footprints in the concrete rooftop wherever his bare feet hit.

But he didn't dare stop.

The person chasing him had been sticking to him like a shadow, chasing him across most of the city. A stupid fight fifteen minutes ago had cost him an arm, and since then, those cold golden eyes had been haunting him like will-o'-the-wisps.

One step slower, and he'd lose his head.

Even though he wasn't scared to turn around anymore, his gut told him he didn't want to think about what'd happen if he got caught.

Hurry, hurry, hurry!! If he could just make it to that spot, someone would be there to back him up! Even as a test subject, he was still a priceless experimental drug guinea pig! He wouldn't be abandoned!!

In the midst of her sprint, Kirisame gestured to Leo behind her, signaling him to cover his mouth and shut up.

Leo, being dragged through the air like a kite, had already smacked his head into power lines who knows how many times. Clenching a hospital mask in his teeth, tears streaming down his face, he could only let out muffled little whimpers.

It all started this afternoon.

On the day of the Sports Festival, a patrol hero from Nighteye's agency ran into an enemy who was "almost impossible to kill." But the guy was just some ordinary street thug, and he had no related Quirk. After they took him down, they hauled him to the nearest hospital. Nighteye checked him out and found something off, so he asked Mirio Togata to find Kirisame.

Just from the description, Kirisame thought the guy's condition sounded really familiar, matching the characteristics of the Angel Scale users she had seen before.

As luck would have it, the boss and the others were in the area too, so they got in touch with Nighteye.

The next day, on Kirisame's day off, they split into two teams. Kirisame took Leo to the hospital to see the severely injured enemy, while the boss took Zapp to investigate the location clues Nighteye had found.

When Kirisame and Leo spotted the suspected drug user from a distance at the hospital that afternoon, he looked like he'd made a full recovery. Other than still looking like he'd just crawled out of a horror movie, the doctors said his other bodily functions showed no signs of the massive damage he'd taken the day before.

Shoto Todoroki was heading downstairs at that moment.

He'd come to visit his mom, Rei Todoroki. After the Sports Festival, he'd decided he needed to make peace with his past, and facing his mom was a necessary step.

But things turned out way better than he'd imagined in the hundreds of times he'd forced himself to muster courage. His mom smiled and forgave him.

As the partner of the No. 2 hero, Rei's room was under special care on the top floor of the hospital. Two floors below, in the same large general hospital, was the intensive monitoring ward.

With a sharp sound of breaking glass and someone's scream, the elevator suddenly stopped at a certain floor.

Just as the hero-in-training opened the elevator door to see what was happening, he only caught a glimpse of a mummy-like figure, who, after crazily smashing through the specially reinforced glass of the care ward and knocking over two nurses, leaped from over ten stories high and disappeared into the night.

Two people followed closely behind him, jumping out through the gap in the window.

...For some reason, he felt that the black-and-gold color scheme of one of the people who turned back looked vaguely familiar.

Was he imagining things?

But that person just now... was clearly a boy!

...A distant cousin of Aizawa Kirisame or something?

That boy was, of course, Kirisame.

Perhaps for reasons of secrecy and convenience, unlike having a convenient infiltration skill like Jean's, Kirisame Reinherz—unlike the little girl Kirisame who grew up on the streets of Hellsalem's Lot—had been a boy since her first independent Libra mission.

The ability of the short sword Midare Tōshirō reduced its consumption as the user became more proficient. So Kirisame's most commonly used disguise method involved only minor changes to her appearance: just altering her clothing style and changing her hairstyle to match her classmate Shoto Todoroki's, and she became a completely different person.

Aside from the contact with Nighteye's agency, this operation was essentially a solo Libra mission. Since Kirisame would continue to study and live here for a while, it was best not to cause trouble with the police and heroes.

It was rare to have to be as sneaky as the fugitive while capturing someone.

When Leo was secretly happy to have escaped the fate of working with Zapp and cheerfully followed Kirisame to the hospital, he had no idea what was about to happen to him.

The person lying on the hospital bed, who had seemed half-dead just a moment ago, suddenly burst out and charged away the moment they got close.

Before he could even exclaim that it was over ten stories high, his companion, who had truly inherited the essence of Zapp and the boss, turned around and stabbed him with a knife.

Leo watched helplessly as the short knife completely disappeared into his body.

Then Kirisame jumped down without hesitation.

"...!!!"

Although he had seen Kirisame's school Sports Festival and knew she could fly now, the curly-haired boy was still briefly startled.

Kirisame had already gone after the person. Not to mention how to handle the chaotic scene here, even if he took the elevator now, he would never catch up to them by the time he got down. Just as the boy was scratching his head, wondering what to do next, he suddenly found his body out of control.

As if pulled by some invisible thread, he was lifted into the air, regardless of his current posture, and flew straight out the window as well.

...and in the middle of it, he hit the window frame twice because he went out at the wrong angle.

Even though Leo's only redeeming quality besides his sharp eyes was his thick skull, the pain still brought tears to his eyes. But before he could reach up to cover the spot where he'd hit, he suddenly realized something.

He was floating in midair, over ten stories up, with no safety equipment.

“...”

“...WAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

“Hey, keep it down, Leo! You're not gonna fall!”

“...Huh?”

Though the dark-haired, golden-eyed youth's voice was muffled by the strong wind, Leo felt a little relieved.

He didn't know what Kirisame had done. He really wasn't falling; instead, he was being pulled through the air like a kite on a string, dragged in the direction Kirisame was moving.

—Relieved, my ass!!

He was soaked through, wind was blasting into his throat, and more importantly—

This thing couldn't avoid obstacles at all!!

Like in one of those super 4D movies he'd seen at the HL cinema, the kite boy watched a giant neon sign rushing straight for his face.

His vision went black.

—The short sword twin brothers, Maeda Toshiro and Hirano Toshiro, had the ability "Attraction," which caused Leo's current predicament.

The decision to pair the boss with Zapp and Kirisame with Leo was partly because they were afraid Zapp might do something reckless when left unsupervised, but more importantly, Kirisame had the ability to bring Leo along with little effort at all times.

The sword that had just stabbed into Leo was Maeda. Kirisame now held Aizen in one hand and Hirano in the other, chasing the man ahead.

...Probably someone who gave him the medicine sensed something, which was why he'd desperately fled the hospital the moment he recovered.

...If they followed him, they might learn something.

In the city's shadowy corners untouched by light, a high school girl in uniform was gleefully watching a man bathed in blood, struggling desperately to escape.

"Why run? You look so cute right now!" The girl with long, deep purple hair and a common high school hairpin spoke with a tone of innocent cruelty, as if genuinely puzzled. She toyed with a small knife, flashing a sweet yet manic smile, and stabbed the middle-aged man again. "You said you liked me earlier, didn't you? Let's play together!"

The man, woozy from blood loss, had thought the high school girl looked like a proper lady he liked, so he'd lured her into the alley—only to find a crazy woman!

Ignoring the pain, he scrambled away, a scream of "Where's a hero?! Help!" caught in his throat, about to burst out.

The high school girl narrowed her eyes unhappily, ready to teach her disobedient toy a lesson.

Then, in the darkness, a withered figure burst out from a distance, rushing toward someone strolling out of a corner ahead, shouted hoarsely, his voice so hoarse and piercing it made one want to cough:

"Save me! Someone's chasing—"

The plea cut off mid-sentence, as if someone had grabbed his throat.

His eyes, wide with terror, reflected the black hole of a gun barrel in the hands of the person who was supposed to be his backup.

Almost simultaneously, a red light shot diagonally, netting the high school girl and the middle-aged man and pulling them back rapidly.

A dull thud. A large-scale bio-bullet hit directly. Before the modified human could finish his sentence, he exploded into a spray of blood.

At the end of the alley, the deep purple-haired girl's curvaceous body was bound by red light, and the dark-haired, golden-eyed youth one hand braced against the wall over her, the other covering her mouth.

The blood that had splattered all over him from cutting off the modified human's arm hadn't fully coagulated. The youth's breath, warm and moist, came with the heavy smell of blood at her neck.

His cold golden eyes, so close, held a strange and ruthless look.

The girl blinked. Her cheeks flushed an unusual red from excitement and restraint.

Her heart pounded in her chest. The hand clutching the small knife had uncontrollably reached behind the youth's back.

He... was so beautiful!!