The next morning, it wasn't the pain in his shoulder that woke Satoru.
It was the silence.
Not the peaceful kind—but the suffocating quiet of something waiting on the other side of the door. A tension that slithered under the floorboards and into his ribs. He reached for his phone.
His face was on three major hero news feeds.
"Unlicensed Youth Interferes in Pro Operation"
"Helmet Hero Causes Tactical Disruption"
"Public Safety Commission Reviewing Vigilante Activity"
They didn't use his name. But the helmet. The armor. The moment he caught the civilian in his arms—it was all there. Frozen in images, dissected in slow motion, turned into headlines that bled.
Satoru put the phone down, very gently.
His hand trembled.
---
At the flower shop, the door didn't chime as loudly as it usually did.
Miyako stood behind the register, folding paper into careful petals, her eyes darting to the screen of her own phone. She had seen it too.
Keiko arrived not long after. She walked in uniform, her mouth a hard line, fists clenched at her sides. She didn't say good morning.
Instead:
"He saved people. That's the only fact that matters."
Satoru didn't answer right away. He was in the back, cleaning flower buckets with quiet, mechanical movements.
"…They're not wrong," he said finally. "I acted without clearance. I broke chain of command."
Keiko stepped closer. "You acted. While the pros hesitated."
"You're a cop," he muttered. "You know how this looks."
Keiko's voice cracked—not from volume, but from something deeper.
"I also know what it looks like when someone watches people die because they're scared of paperwork."
---
By noon, the shop was unusually busy. Not with customers—but with attention.
Reporters didn't come to the door, but they loitered across the street. Phones out. Whispering. Watching.
Someone slipped a nasty flyer under the door: Vigilantes make things worse.
Miyako knelt to pick it up, lips pressed together.
Satoru noticed. "You can throw it out."
But she didn't. Instead, she folded the corner. Then another. And another.
Until the flyer became a crane.
She set it on the counter like any other flower arrangement.
"I believe you," she whispered.
Satoru looked at her, throat tight.
He didn't know how to say thank you, so he just nodded once.
---
By evening, things only grew worse.
An anonymous source from the Hero Public Safety Commission leaked that Mumen Rider—real name unknown—had interfered in at least four missions in the past year.
"Unlicensed, unsanctioned, and increasingly reckless," the article read.
Sayaka was waiting for him when he came to the hospital that night. Not in the hallway. Not in the breakroom.
In his mother's room.
Mrs. Kojima was asleep, IV line glowing faintly under the low light. Sayaka sat in the corner chair, arms crossed, a look on her face that said she'd waited a long time to say something.
"You look like hell," she said.
"I deserve worse," he muttered.
Sayaka rose slowly and stood in front of him. "You're spiraling."
"I ruined everything."
"You saved lives."
"And maybe got myself blacklisted by the Commission in the process!"
He didn't mean to raise his voice, but the words exploded from his chest.
Sayaka didn't flinch.
"You don't need to die to matter, Satoru."
He froze.
"You think bleeding more makes it count for something?" she continued, voice firm but low. "That if you hurt enough, people will finally get it? That they'll see what you're trying to do?"
She stepped closer.
"You don't owe anyone your suffering. You owe your mother your life."
He sat down.
Not because he wanted to.
Because suddenly, his legs wouldn't hold him.
---
Kana saw him later.
She had been walking past the hallway, on her way to sneak into the vending machine room. She wasn't supposed to be out this late.
But when she saw him—hunched over, hands in his hair, eyes rimmed red—she didn't say a word.
She just stood there in the shadows, her fists clenched at her sides.
He looked so small. Even in that armor.
Even with the helmet still beside him.