Rain.
The skies opened the morning of Aoi's funeral as if the world itself was trying to wash away the stain it had allowed to happen.
But it wasn't enough.
Takuma stood beneath the wide canopy tent alongside rows of black suits and gray umbrellas, but the water still crept under his collar, soaked into his sleeves, and ran down the back of his neck. He didn't flinch. Didn't move.
He hadn't spoken a word since the night he was found.
The heroes who discovered him said he was half-buried in ash. They thought he'd been caught in a Quirk crossfire. He hadn't corrected them. He just sat there, blank-eyed, Aoi's cooling hand clutched in his, smoke still bleeding faintly from the creases of his palms.
Now, her casket descended.
Each inch down was another nail in his heart.
Aoi Itsuno. 18 years old. Honor student. Hero Course standout. Future Pro Hero.Brutalized. Abandoned. Forgotten.
No public report mentioned what had been done to her in those final moments. The official story said she died "fighting valiantly against three villains." No camera footage, no autopsy release. The case was already going cold.
"Too high profile," someone had muttered at the station."Better for morale if we don't drag her name through the mud."
Takuma remembered every word. Every smirk.
His fingers clenched around the wilted chrysanthemum in his hand, petals crushed, knuckles white.
From behind, someone placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Takuma… she was proud of you, you know," came the soft voice of his aunt, Misora. She hadn't stopped crying for days. "You're going to be okay. I promise."
He didn't respond.
He didn't believe her.
The days blurred after that.
He didn't eat much. Barely slept. He didn't return to school, either—not that anyone expected him to. The faculty sent their condolences. His classmates sent flowers. His homeroom teacher sent a sympathy card and then quietly transferred him to remote learning.
He ignored it all.
Instead, he read.
Not books about grief. Not how to heal. He read case files. Underground reports. Hero commission data leaks. Villain profiling guides. He learned the names of the men who killed her.
None were caught.
None were even being searched for.
They'd all gone underground, and no hero was assigned to investigate further. A "tragic incident" in a district with no cameras. Another file to be shelved.
But Takuma remembered.
He saw their faces, heard their voices. Memorized their scars and movements and the way the cloaked one tilted his head when he decided to break someone.
He'd studied the underworld before, but now?
Now it was personal.
He cracked open online black market forums. Hacked into secure channels he shouldn't have had access to. Used burner accounts to slip into villain-friendly chatrooms and crime rings, gathering information like a spider weaving a web out of vengeance.
He learned how they moved.
How they recruited.
How they hid.
And all the while, something within him simmered.
His Quirk—or whatever it was—hadn't shown itself again. Not like that night. But the sensation remained. When he passed by a fire, he could feel it. When he stood near construction sites, the earth itched beneath his skin. And smoke—he felt it clinging to him like a second shadow.
He didn't control it.
It waited.
He wasn't sure what for.
It wasn't until nearly a month after the funeral that he finally stepped outside again after dark.
He walked alone.
No umbrella. No bag.
Just himself, the city, and a black hoodie zipped all the way up.
He wandered for hours, aimless, letting the neon signs and alleyways blur together. Until eventually, he found himself in front of the place where it happened.
District 9. Loading zone. Cracked pavement. No camera feed.
The blood was gone. So were the bodies. But the scar remained.
He knelt where she'd died.
Placed his hand on the concrete.
It was cold.
The smoke seeped into his hand before he even realized it. And with it, came the memories.
Her scream.
Their laughter.
The moment she smiled through her broken teeth just to comfort him.
His hand closed into a fist.
"Heroes don't get justice," he whispered to no one."They get ceremonies."
"But monsters? Monsters get protected."
He stood.
His arms shimmered faintly with a dull gray hue—concrete dust bleeding into his veins like mist into glass.
He didn't feel like a hero.
He didn't want to be one.
Heroes followed rules.
Heroes played by the system.
And the system had killed her long before those men laid a hand on her.
"They don't deserve mercy," he muttered."But some deserve fear."
He didn't smile.
But he felt a spark.
Something old.
Something new.
Ash coiled from his palm.
That night, the media would report a minor gang base going up in flames.
No one was killed. But everyone inside was hospitalized. Broken bones. Crushed weapons. Fire damage. And not a trace of the attacker except for a calling card—
Burned into the side of the wall in black soot:
"ASHEND."