Shigure met Hawk's gaze. Hawks didn't blink.
His heart thundered—louder than thought. Then—
CRACK
Shigure blinked, his visor now cut into two pieces by a feather.
His body moved on instinct—he bolted.
Just like Ryu—running, desperate.
'Speed Up'
His domain snapped into place—tight, invisible to everyone but him.
He found the world slowed down, his eyes now morphed into a white forward head arrow, hidden behind his contacts.
He sprinted flat-out.
He didn't care about his stamina depleting— He couldn't afford to.
He cut sharp corners through the alleys, guided by instinct alone.
He didn't care about getting caught on the cameras— His mind couldn't afford such a distraction.
He didn't care about crashing multiple garbage cans on the ground due to the reckless parkour.
With a single-minded focus, he did only one thing— He ran.
Ran like no tomorrow.
He didn't care about the black cat he almost trampled. He couldn't afford to care about another person's well-being.
He didn't care about almost crashing into two people in the alley doing something. He couldn't aff—"Kyaaah..."
He blinked, glancing at the bottom left of his vision.
Two almost naked people. One man and one woman.
The world being slowed for him gave him quite a clear sight of them.
"I am sorry," Shigure said in the most apologetic tone he could muster.
'Their luck was quite bad. This is one of the best spots for doing such things.' He shoved the guilt down and moved on.
After a few minutes of running, he found himself on top of a building, curled into a dark corner, silent.
'I think I finally lost him.' He thought, his breathing ragged, shallow.
Shigure could slow time for himself, but still had to run the entire journey.
It might seem like his speed was faster to others due to his quirk, but to him, he had done the entire journey normally— draining his stamina reserves.
His quirk is sometimes mistaken for an enhancer, but it's clearly not. His max speed or momentum is limited by the normal top speed of his ordinary body. Quite complicated physics when such quirk logic is applied.
CRUNCH.
Shigure quickly bit on the chocolate, intending to get back his reserves to full.
"There you are. I almost lost you for a second."
His gaze snapped left—Hawks standing on the railings. A few inches away from his head.
Even before he registered this fact, his quirk instantly activated, his domain intending to engulf Hawks.
Hawks suddenly jumped back from the ceiling, his wings flapping at a speed too fast to track, hurling him more than a hundred metres in the sky.
"Interesting quirk. Can't see it coming. Guess all that instinct training I went through was worth it." Hawks nonchalantly said.
Shigure blinked.
Crunch.
He stayed seated, chewing slowly, thinking fast.
To Hawks, the boy moved like a video on 5x speed.
Before he knew it, Shigure was done. He slowly got up, shoving the wrapper back in his bag and then put the same hand... inside his t-shirt.
"Oops. Busted." Hawks smirked at Shigure, who frowned, holding a red feather.
'Due to being too focused on myself, this feather went undetected in my domain. How careless.' Shigure threw the feather out of his domain.
After his quirk awakened again, reaching tier 3, he could be spatially aware of things inside his domain, albeit with intense focus.
"Listen, I just want to talk to you."
"No."
Multiple feathers rushed at him, intending to restrain him.
Shigure closed his eyes.
'Slow Down.'
All the feathers heading towards him slowed down.
Shigure jumped back, his hand going towards his waist bag.
"Stop... Or I will jump." Shigure threatened, balanced on the railing.
"You... I would be able to catch you before you reach the ground." Hawks was dumbfounded.
"I will slow you down before you reach me. I'll already be dead."
Hawks tilted his head, confused.
"If you are trying to threaten me with bad PR with your death, then you are being delusional." Hawks deadpan.
He stayed silent. Hawks saw it as a hesitation in his next move.
Just as Hawks was going to move, the boy spoke again.
"I am part of the Meta-Liberation Army. I even know the identity of the leader."
Blink.
Hawks blinked. "Kid... stop kidding. You are not in trouble, but if you keep saying such things, then it would be problematic to turn a blind eye."
Hawks didn't believe the kid, who looked barely 12 years old, to be part of one of the most notorious villain groups currently active.
"I have the information. My quirk is quite valuable, and I am smart. Believe it or not, this is the truth." The boy didn't take back his claims.
'Though he does have a unique quirk, which I suspect to be time-related, still...'
"Tell me the name of the city where the Meta-Liberation army made their major public move last year."
Shigure's eyebrows tightened, his expression screaming, "Are you serious?" as if what Hawks asked was common knowledge.
He met Hawk's eyes and—
jumped back from the railing.
Hawk's body moved on instinct, flying towards the boy.
Just as he came above the boy, he found his body slowed down. He gazed at the boy, who stared back at him. The boy's gaze was calm.
He drew a gun—and fired.
"Is that a grappling hook?" Keigo asked in shock.
He watched in shock as the hook moved at a normal speed for a few moments before its speed increased by multiple folds in his pov.
'We are slowed down.' Hawks instantly came to that conclusion. His gaze went back to the falling boy, who now had a smirk on his face.
'So he could slow down and speed up things in a certain area, which is highly likely to be limited by the distance from him as the core.'
"Please don't chase me. I have been told not to talk to suspicious strangers." With that, Shigure got pulled by the force of the grappling hook, leaving Hawks still slowed down.
'He fooled me.'
After a few seconds, Hawks regained his normal speed.
'60 meters. That should be his distance limit... No, knowing this brat, he might be intentionally showing less to confuse me. Let's go with the assumption of 150 metres.' With that, Hawks flapped his wings, dashing towards Shigure.
---
Shigure found himself doing a mixture of high-level parkour with his grappling hook.
'Is this how it feels to be Spider-Man? This does feel amazing.' For a second, Shigure forgot that he was being chased.
He called his hook back, dropped to the ground in a roll, before bolting out of an alley to the main road.
'I still should not be caught by the cameras due to the advanced face mask I am using. But, it would be annoying if any more of my quirk is revealed. Going to any hero school in the future might become tough.' Shigure started jogging on the foot walk.
'Fuck that. Priority is to get him off my trail.' Shigure looked around, his eyes brightening when he saw a truck, open in the back with multiple water canisters present, moving towards him.
He looked at the driver and quietly jumped into the moving truck with the help of his quirk.
He quickly made his entire figure small, making it hard to locate him from a top view.
One minute went like that, and Shigure started believing that he had finally got Hawks from his trail—
Before looking at a man flying in the sky.
'FUCK... No, He hasn't noticed me yet. It means that I have almost lost him. Just need to lose him now.' He forced himself to be optimistic.
However, he noticed Hawk's was still flying in the truck's direction.
Shigure would have thought that man was pretending not to know him if he had not passed the truck Shigure was in.
Shigure looked sideways and realised that the truck was on a bridge.
A bridge he recognised.
'The truck would have to stop at the base coz there's a traffic signal. There's a chance that Hawks will notice me then. Let's not take the risk.' Shigure nodded to himself and, while looking at the flying figure of Hawks getting farther from him, he jumped on top of the truck.
The truck was moving near the edge of the bridge.
He jumped—off the truck, off the bridge.
'Let's hide under the bridge using the grappling hook,' Shigure thought while looking at the water around 200 metres below him.
He aimed the gun at one of the pillars where a small platform was present.
Click.
However, at that moment, Shigure realised something.
The grappler failed.
***
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