The next morning, Mykhail got prepared for school. He brushed his teeth, washed his face, and tried to feed Rocky, who knocked over his bowl.
"What am I gonna do with you, mutt?" he thought.
He sighed and went to the bathroom to get cleaning supplies to fix Rocky's mess. While he dug inside his cabinets, he noticed the shower was on and someone was humming inside.
"La-la-la-la-la!"
Mykhail pulled back the curtain to find Yasuda showering in his underwear, rubbing himself with a rag that clearly wasn't his.
"Mykhail!" he greeted.
"Why the hell are you in my house?" Mykhail exclaimed.
"You invited me!" Yasuda pointed out.
"Hey now, I did not INVITE you, I challenged you. How long have you been here? How did you find my house? And why are you using my rag?"
Yasuda rubbed his armpits. "It feels very nice."
"Yeah, I'm throwing that out."
Yasuda grabbed Mykhail's shoulders and excitedly shook him. "Does this mean I can join you? I won! I won!"
"Goodness, he's touching me," Mykhail thought. "Why is he in his underwear?"
"So?"
"Uhh, sure, I guess. Now, please step out of my shower immediately, and put on some clothes."
"Okay!"
Soon after, Yasuda was wearing baggy clothes and standing in Mykhail's room, while Rocky barked up a storm at him.
"Why are you wearing my clothes?" Mykhail asked.
"Because I don't have mine!" Yasuda admitted.
"Why do you—? Never mind, forget it," Mykhail sighed. "So, you're a new superhuman too?"
Yasuda nodded.
"Was it the gas?"
He nodded again.
"So, your superpower lets you see the world differently?" Mykhail asked. "Like in a slow-motion lens?"
He nodded once again. "I can think fast, move fast, and learn fast!"
"That's pretty useful," Mykhail thought. "A hyper-brain is no joke. Not even I can do that."
"What's your power?" Yasuda asked.
"Oh, um, well…" Mykhail stammered. "I usually just call it…the Power of the Sword!"
His sword flew into his hands, glowing a soft light blue color. "I have no idea where it came from or how it works, but that's a quest for another day."
"Awesome!" Yasuda cheered.
An alarm went off on Mykhail's phone. "Seems my school bus is about to come. I've gotta go, so you should too."
"School?" Yasuda questioned. "I wanna come!"
Mykhail stared at him, puzzled. "Don't you have school?"
"Nope! Home taught!"
"Should have known," Mykhail groaned. "Well, I'm pretty certain the teachers and staff won't be too happy if some random comes onto campus, so——"
He looked around, but Yasuda was gone. "Great."
By the bus stop…
A group of girls was sitting and chatting away while sitting at the bus stop. Kumiko and Kurumi were among them.
"Is Takehiro sick today?" one girl asked.
"No, he just called off to help his mother with the laundry," Kurumi replied.
"Aww, he's such a sweetheart!"
"Hey, Kumiko," another girl remarked. "Did your hair get longer? It looks so nice!"
"Well," she answered. "I guess that's one way to put it!"
She immediately froze up when she saw Mykhail walking to the bus stop, with Yasuda hot on his trail.
"Listen," Mykhail whispered. "Don't say anything or do anything that puts attention on yourself, okay? Don't tell anyone you're my new sidekick."
"Side-what?" he asked.
"I'll explain it later."
The girls noticed as well.
"Who's that boy walking with Mykhail?" the first girl asked. "He looks like such a dweeb!"
Mykhail approached them, waving. "Morning."
Kumiko gave him an unimpressed look as her eyes drifted between him and Yasuda. Kurumi got up and gave him a hug.
"Morning, Mykhail! Who's that?"
"That? That's my assistant."
"What?"
Mykhail gestured to Yasuda. "Yep. He handles all the problems I don't want to. Including school!"
The girls stared at him, confused. Yasuda looked at each one of them, the world beginning to slow around him.
"Woah…" Yasuda blurted out in awe.
He could hear their heartbeats, feel the warmth of their breaths, almost SEE the nervous sweat dripping from their foreheads, and he could hear the faintest sound of a bug flying over Kumiko's head.
"Gotcha!"
He slapped the bug, making Kumiko jump back. "Ahh! What the hell?"
Mykhail slapped his forehead. "He's…not a very socially trained person. Sorry."
The bus rolled up, stopping and opening the doors. The girls stood up and made a line, entering the bus one by one. Yasuda prepared to enter as well, but Mykhail grabbed him by the arm.
"Look, if you're going to come, you can't be acting all strange, okay?"
"Sure thing!"
Then he basically jumped onto the bus, making Mykhail sigh. Mykhail got on after, waving to the bus driver, Mr. Ito.
"Good morning, Mykhail," Mr. Ito greeted.
"Morning," Mykhail said back.
Mykhail went to sit in the back of the bus where Kumiko and Kurumi were sitting. He squeezed into the seat at the end, while Kurumi and Kumiko shot him a few looks.
"What?" Mykhail asked.
"Your 'assistant,'" Kumiko replied. "Why is he on our bus? He's weird. I don't like him."
"Kumiko, that's not nice," Kurumi pointed out. "It might be true, but it's not nice."
"I don't care!"
Mykhail shrugged. "Well, it was pretty hard to shake him. At least he's not sitting near us. That should save us the embarrassment——"
"Hey, guys!"
Out of nowhere, Yasuda popped up from behind their seats, smiling like a kid in a candy store. "This is so cool! I've never ridden a bus before!"
The entire bus looked back and stared at him.
"Yep," Mykhail muttered. "Embarrassment."
Meanwhile, at Takehiro's house…
Takehiro was busy outside sorting through his family's dirty laundry, placing shirts, pants, and shoes in different bins.
"Okay, almost done. I didn't even know Mom had all these clothes," he thought. "She must have bought them recently."
A chilling wind brushed past him, but he shrugged it off and continued his work. Once he was done, he brought them inside to put in the washer.
He walked into the laundry room, but he noticed something was missing. "Mom! Where's the bleach?"
His mom entered the room with a dirty apron on, fresh from cooking. "Sorry, son. I forgot to tell you we ran out. Would it be too much for you to ask you to run to the store for me?"
Takehiro set the basket in his hands down. "No worries, Mom. I'll go."
She ruffled his hair. "Thanks! I knew I could count on you."
Takehiro grabbed some money off the counter and left for the nearest corner store. While the walk was longer than he would have liked, he met various neighbors along the way, all of whom he greeted warmly.
"At least not everything about the city's changed," he thought. "I wonder what my friends are doing."
He arrived at the store, which seemed unusually empty. The shopkeeper was behind the counter, cleaning the cash register.
"Morning, kid," he greeted.
"Morning," Takehiro replied.
He went to the cleaning aisle, where a singular customer was shopping: a frantic, young man who was shifting through various types of bleach.
"Crap, crap, crap!" he exclaimed. "Which one? Which one?"
Takehiro cleared his throat, and the guy almost had a heart attack.
"Gah!"
"Are you okay?" Takehiro asked.
"Me?" he answered. "Of course! Perfectly fine! Nothing wrong with me! I just needed to clean my clothes! Nothing more, nothing less! Definitely no crimes involved!"
"Okay…?" Takehiro remarked. "Well, take care."
He grabbed a can of bleach and prepared to take it to the counter, but the young man stopped him.
"Hey, do you perhaps know anything that can clean up blood?"
"I think Chlorine," Takehiro stated. "Why?"
"Just asking. I got cut the other day and there's tons of blood on my shirt, so I need to clean it off."
"Alright," Takehiro said. "Wish you the best."
Takehiro got in line, which only had one other person, a mysterious girl in a coat. She only bought a small pocket knife before leaving the store. Takehiro placed the bleach on the counter and paid for it with a twenty-dollar bill.
"Did you hear about the rising crime rate?" the shopkeeper asked. "Ever since superhumans appeared little over a week ago, it's been almost 30 major crimes a day!"
"Yeah, I heard," Takehiro said. "It's crazy how not even two weeks ago, we were living as usual. Now, we've got to watch ourselves, since anyone can be one of those super-powered crooks."
The frantic man behind him suddenly grew a bit more nervous, but he bit his fingertips to calm himself down.
"Stay safe out there, okay?" the shopkeeper told him. "It's a dangerous world out there."
Takehiro started to leave the store, but a large group of cops entered soon after, blocking off the entrance.
"What the hell——?" Takehiro blurted out.
"Excuse us," the officer in the front clarified. "Is Keisuke Kirishima in the building?"
The frantic young man immediately started shaking and dropped his bleach. The cops noticed him and immediately drew their guns.
"Let me see your hands," the chief officer commanded.
A couple of days ago…
A group of cops went to investigate a missing person's apartment, a girl named Sayaka Matsuura. The police chief, Manabu Okabe, knocked on a room door labeled "113."
"Police!" he declared. "Open up!"
No one answered.
"Alright," Chief Manabu ordered. "Break it open."
Two officers kicked the door open, and they all drew their guns. They entered the room one by one, using their flashlights to scan for any clues.
"Yuck, it smells like a dumpster in here," one officer remarked.
"Focus," Chief Manabu interrupted. "This girl's been missing for 3 days now, and no one in the city goes M.I.A for that long, especially not a child of a government official."
They fanned out and looked through the rooms, and eventually, one officer called out.
"Chief! Look!"
Manabu followed the voice into Sayaka's bedroom, where the body of a young woman was lying, sprawled out, with blood pouring out of her mouth and her limbs bent at unnatural angles.
"Aww, damn it," Manabu lamented. "Poor girl."
"Look, chief," the officer noted, pointing to her skin, which was charred and black. "That's not normal."
"Shit, you're right," Manabu realized. "This might be a superhuman case."
"But we aren't fully trained to deal with them! We don't even know what they are! Director Sato didn't elaborate on the protocols we follow when encountering one!"
"We'll improvise," Manabu insisted. "More importantly, take a look at this."
He picked up a nearby cell phone, which was left unlocked. "The phone's hot. It's been used recently."
He scrolled through it, checking messages. Everything appeared normal, except for one thing.
"Keisuke Kirishima…?" Manabu wondered. "Why is his name at the top, but the chat blank? Every other chat is fine. He texted something only a few hours ago…"
"Chief?" the nearby officer asked.
"Gear up. I think we've got our suspect."
Present Day…
Keisuke all but panicked as the cops approached him. The moment they got close, he dropped the act and grabbed Takehiro, frantically putting a hand to his neck.
"Hey, hey!" he demanded. "Stay back! I'll fry this kid, I swear!"
His eyes began to glow yellow. Takehiro began to sweat nervously. "A superhuman!"
"Drop the boy!" Manabu ordered.
"Let me go, and I will!"
The shopkeeper looked between both sides, stunned and taken aback. "Chief Manabu? What's going on?"
"He killed a girl!" Manabu replied. "A child of one of our own! We've let this go on too long, first that cape-wearing maniac, and now dissenters are following in his footsteps!"
He pulled a radio out. "Back up, surround this place!"
Keisuke pressed his hand firmly against Takehiro's neck. "Don't do it! I'll kill him!"
"You…don't…have…to…do…this," Takehiro pleaded.
"You don't understand! It wasn't my fault! She was going to kill me! She thought I was a freak! But I'm not! I'm different! I'm better!"
The back door burst open, and a cop shot him in the leg, causing him to fall to the ground in pain. Manabu pulled Takehiro away.
"Get out of here, kid!"
Takehiro quickly hurried out the door, while cops swarmed Keisuke. Manabu pointed the gun directly at his head.
"Keisuke Kirishima," he declared. "You're under arrest for first-degree murder."
"No!" Keisuke panicked. "NO!"
"I don't think so."
"Who said that?" Manabu whirled around.
"Heh. Cheap suits."
In an instant, four of the cops behind him had their necks slashed wide open. He turned around, but the moment he did, a knife was plunged into his shoulder.
"Argh!"
The face that greeted him was a terrifying purple and black skull mask, one wearing a hood, with purple and black armor coating around her.
"Who—-?"
She kicked him into the shop's counter, knocking him out cold. More cops tried to shoot at her, but one by one, they all went down. Soon, it was just the shopkeeper and Keisuke left.
The horrified shopkeeper hid behind his counter while the mysterious woman approached Keisuke, who backed away.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Depends on who you ask," she answered. "Some call me a psychopath. Some call me a criminal. Some call me an anarchist. Some call me a villain. You, you can call me Akane."
The eyes of the mask began to glow. "Or better yet, you can call me Serratine."
"What do you want? Please don't hurt me!" he begged.
She spun her knife around. "I don't want much. Just your help. There's a big mission my club is running. I'd like you to join it."
"What mission?"
He could almost sense a grin under that mask of hers.
"Hero hunting."
Meanwhile, Mykhail's bus finally arrived at school.
—-