4 Years Later.
A boy sat on a chair with a blank expression. His bright blue eyes contrasted with his tired look.
His hair was black with multiple big strands of silvery-white hair present, comprising half of his hair.
Crinkle
The sound of a wrapper being peeled off could be heard.
Crunch
He bit on the chocolate with the same look.
Crunch. Crunch. Then—Ack!
He almost swallowed the wrapper.
Ptoo
He spat out the wrapper, which joined the other wrappers lying on the floor.
DING
The bell echoed through the apartment. Shigure glanced at the door before looking back at the floor.
DING
DING
DING DING
DING DING
"Hmm?" Shigure suddenly tilted his head.
DING DING DING
'Why is that wrapper wet?' He furrowed his brows.
DING DING DING
DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING
The doorbell continuously rang before stopping completely.
BEEP BEEP BEEP
His phone buzzed.
He looked blankly at the call from an unknown number.
He stared for moments… that stretched into minutes—
His grip on the phone tightened. He got up from the seat and walked towards the door.
He opened the door to a deliveryman glaring like he wanted to punch someone.
"Hatsune-san?"
"Yes, that would be me. You took a lot of time to get here, no?" Shigure frowned.
Veins started popping on the man's forehead, however, he didn't move.
"Sir, you changed your locations 9 times in the last 7 hours... Did you lose your mind?"
"It's not my fault, as your company uses such an outdated map service. Did you know that due to your repeated calls in the last 7 hours, I didn't get any proper sleep." Shigure pointed his fingers at his eyebags.
At 12, he looked more worn-out than an old man working in a black company.
The delivery guy also found himself speechless, observing Shigure.
"I am very sorry, sir. The as— boss is quite orthodox in such matters. I am tired of trying to explain to him stuff." The delivery guy sighed.
"Anyway, thank you for the items. Here's the code." Shigure said in a hurried tone, as if wanting to complete the ordeal.
Shigure gave the code. The guy whispered a prayer and left.
He ignored it and shut the door.
'I was expecting him to attack me, yet this guy won't even fight with his boss. He wasted all the time I invested in him.' Shigure's jaws clenched along with his grip on the box.
'Breathe' He took a deep breath, followed by multiple deep breaths.
He opened his phone to check his bank balance.
96,627,420 Yen.
'Three months, give or take.' His mood dropped, remembering his meal costs.
Suddenly, his half-white, half-black hair turned completely white. His eyes now sported a single forward arrowhead.
'1 month... 1 month... I need to wait 1 month... how much would that be in my dilated space?... let's move now only.' Impatience won
---
Location- Saitama
The door of the train opened, and Shigure exited.
He looked around before going to the streets.
"Damn, this is completely unexpected," Shigure said while looking at a statue of a bald man, in a costume.
People could be seen taking photos with that statue.
"Guess otaku culture's alive after all." He started walking towards the location by looking at his phone.
He was wearing a hoodie and tracks, all loose. His body shape was hidden. An image recognition algorithm wouldn't recognise him if he covered his head fully instead of just a face mask.
He entered an alley, dropping his bag.
He put on a mask— no a visor, looking futuristic.
'Spent a fortune on this hunk of metal. It better pay off.'
Shigure heard a female robotic tone in his ears.
"How childish." He muttered, a grin creeping on his face.
"Ki, we are going to smash some balls today."
<... UNDERSTOOD. Initiating the Protocol S. Calibrating location in the Map...Success. Requesting access from the Public cameras in the area...Success. Finding targets for the User...>
Ki is the most successful agent created by Shigure to date. Her performance is on par with the Intelligent Systems found on the market. It was an impressive feat because Shigure was running her locally, on his servers, which are incomparable to what her market competitors run on.
It was one of the things he had done in the last 4 years to cure his boredom.
Unfortunately, Ki had not reached a level such that she could mimic humans, let alone impulsive humans. Otherwise, Shigure might spend all his time with her to entertain himself.
It was one thing to mess with humans, and a different thing to mess with a machine trained to act calmly.
A transparent mini-map appeared on the top left part of his vision. He started moving towards the pinned location.
"Ki, how am I supposed to smash his balls if he can turn it in spring?"
A small bullet list appeared in the middle of the right side of his vision.
1. Break the spring.
Breaking the spring itself has a high chance of causing damage to the original organ.
2. Tire your enemy.
Every quirk requires energy. Tiring him out until he can't sustain his transformation is a plausible choice.
3. Attack at multiple points.
This could lead to overwhelming them, giving you an opening to exploit.
He blinked.
"That's... new. I wasn't expecting you to answer... at least not like this. Can you send me the citations that you used to generate this response... It seems I am missing some of the juicy online discussions like this." Shigure looked at the top websites Ki had used for her research.
Redd*t.
Shigure stopped walking as the target came in sight.
The man counted stolen bills. The victim was long gone.
"Guess, heroes are indeed late after all."
The bulgar turned sharply towards Shigure, getting into a guarded stance.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Ki, are you done finding the nearest location where cameras aren't present?"
"Answer me! Actually, I don't care as long as you don't disturb me."
"He can't hear me, can he?" Shigure scanned his opponent.
"Nope." Shigure put one of his hands in his bag and took out something.
It was a stack of papers.
Money specifically.
Shigure flailed the money stack around.
"Do you think you could catch my attention if you flail money around?" The burglar said with a deadpan.
Shigure stopped flailing the money and looked the man in the eye.
Eye met visor.
Step.
In the next instant, Shigure bolted towards his left.
"WAIT! We can talk!" The villain shouted, his feet converting into springs.
WHOOSH
Air parted away as the villain moved at speeds rivalling that of a speeding car.
His target— the money stack.
Shigure, as if he could see behind him, threw the bill in the side alley.
"Hmph." The man snorted. He kicked the wall on his right, bolting into the alley and grabbed the money bill before it touched the ground.
"YOU! This is fake!" The man shouted, throwing away the stack of bills.
"Dumbass. What did you expect?" A Mechanical voice could be heard coming from the visor.
The man's entire body shook with rage before going completely still.
"I see what's happening here. A kid who is still in his diapers is playing hero. I will give you points for the visor for hiding your identity... but." The man suddenly disappeared and appeared inches away from Shigure.
"It is useless if you can't protect the visor." The man swiped his hand.
Tried to.
'Huh?'
He found the boy sidestepping.
He wasn't surprised at the boy sidestepping, but at the sheer speed at which he sidestepped.
That didn't seem to align with his understanding of physics.
SMACK
Suddenly, he found himself slapped right across his cheeks.
RING.
'Huh?' He blinked, his ears ringing.
SMACK
Another slap on his other cheek.
The pain finally registered for him.
'Fast.'
That was the only coherent thought he made before getting smacked again.
SMACK
SMACK
SMACK
The slaps came so fast they blurred—like gunfire made of flesh. The thief stumbled back, vision tilting.
"Hehehehe."
A mechanical giggle sputtered out of the boy—cut off mid-note, like a toy running out of batteries.
The man tried to spring away, literally—his legs flexing and bouncing. But the boy matched him, skipping alongside like a ghost on an energy drink, slapping him every few steps. Like he was playing whack-a-mole and just found the premium version.
Then he noticed the gloves.
Red.
Wet.
His blood.
"Eww." The boy stopped, holding his hands out like a kid who touched a worm. "Now look what you made me do. My gloves are all sticky."
He tilted his head.
"...I almost forgot—I do have a weapon."
He reached into his bag.
The thief hit the floor so fast he left a skin trail.
"W-wait—look, we can talk. You're young! You've got a whole life ahead! College! Anime girls!"
The boy paused mid-reach.
"...Anime girls?"
A grin formed behind his visor.
"Nah. You're funnier. Way funnier than that deliveryman"
Shigure took out rods from his bag.
Just small, linked rods. That's all the man saw.
"Huh?"
Then the pieces snapped into a single metal staff.
It was a foldable metal stick.
"What are y— AAAAAAAAAAAAAH....." The staff hit his groin. He dropped, groaning
"CM"
"All that advice, and none of it mattered."
Shigure rolled his eyes, muttered 'useless,' and looked back at the man.
Suddenly, Shigure hit the man again at the same spot.
"Ahhhhhhhh..."
He watched the man writhe.
Crack.
Another hit.
"Ughhhhh...."
This time, he noticed himself.
His breath hitched. Goosebumps crawled over his skin.
'"...Fuck."
***
A/n- There's an author note at the end of chapter 8, which will address these tendencies of Shigure. It would be a minor element in the storytelling, but an important one to who Shigure is. So, do read that before making any conclusions about this story.
***
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