Authors note:
Speaking: "..."
Thinking: '...'
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"And we'll definitely save her this time."
"Of course, we'll save her. You think I'll let myself be scared away by some third-rate villain?" the explosion boy stated with a confident grin on his face.
"Careful, Kacchan. Don't get cocky. We'll get her, but we mustn't fight Ban, he's currently out of our league," the still white-eyed boy stated calmly, looking at his friend, who responded with a little scowl.
After storing their weapons away and putting the body of the one thug who didn't get completely destroyed in the trash container, they made their way back to the door they came through and walked back into the exhibition, where Asahi had luckily not returned yet.
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Asahi's POV
It had taken him about ten minutes to find a toilet and then another three to finish his business. After returning to the exhibition, he quickly spotted the two boys and made his way toward them, catching a glimpse of Izuku talking to Katsuki with strange eyes. However, when he arrived at the scene, the boy looked at him with his normal emerald eyes. Only then did he notice their clothes.
"Boys, what on earth did you do? Those are not the clothes you had on before, and why are they wet?" he exclaimed worriedly, kneeling down to their level and checking them for any injuries, luckily not finding any.
"Well, look outside, there's a goddamn storm out there. We just happened to have a 'heated' discussion out there before it started to rain. So, we took out some clothes from Izuku's inventory, but we forgot that it would instantly put them on, so they also got wet," the crimson-eyed boy explained, arms crossed, looking away while the other boy rubbed the back of his head, smiling sheepishly.
'We're lucky we have an inventory with spare clothes, otherwise, he would have seen the blood stains on the clothing,' Izuku thought, still smiling and keeping up the act.
Though skeptical at first, Asahi eventually sighed, giving them the benefit of the doubt, and moved on.
"Well then, I suppose this is the end of our first day at the exhibition. We'll get you two home, and you'll both take hot showers and change out of those wet clothes. I can't have you catching a cold. Your mothers would be furious with me," he said, taking both their hands and dragging a grinning Katsuki and a protesting Izuku back to the car and driving them back to the hotel.
10 minutes later at the hotel
Carefully opening the door, hoping Inko was still out shopping, Asahi looked inside and, luckily, found no one there. With a relieved sigh, he told the boys, "Boys, go shower now. We can't risk Inko finding out, okay? We have two showers, so use both."
The boys went to the room they were sharing, grabbed some spare clothes, and made their way to the two showers.
A bit later, when they both came out, Izuku told the Phoenix man that they would be going to Aincrad tonight because they wanted to check on something. After a brief debate on why Asahi had to do some more work and couldn't come with them, they went to their room and supposedly entered the game Quirk.
About two minutes later, the front door opened, revealing the green-haired woman coming back with a lot of bags in her hands, also using her minor telekinetic quirk to carry the smaller items.
"Wait, Inko, let me help you out. Here, I'll take these off your hands," the mostly white-haired man said, taking more than half the bags from her and putting them in the living area.
"Thanks, Asahi, I appreciate it," the woman said with a smile, placing the rest of the bags where the orange-eyed man had put the others.
"Anyway, what did you even buy so much of? What is all of this?" the man questioned.
"Oh, just clothes for Izuku, Katsuki, and a bit for me. You know how their tastes in clothing have changed since that time, and I took this opportunity to get them some clothes that don't scream, 'I'm 4 years old,'" Inko said, starting to unpack the clothes as Asahi sat down on the sofa.
"So, tell me, how was your day with the boys? They didn't stir up any trouble, did they?" the green-haired woman questioned with a small chuckle, folding a green T-shirt.
"Well, aside from the fact that the trip didn't excite Katsuki as much as I had hoped, I think it was pretty successful, all things considered. There was one weird thing, though. Nah, I think I was imagining things back there," the Phoenix man stated, closing his eyes and leaning his head back to relax.
"Oh, now you're making me curious. What is this weird thing you're talking about?" Inko jokingly asked, still unpacking the clothes.
"I think I just hallucinated a bit, but if you really want to know... after I came back from the toilet, I think I saw Izuku's eyes change color for a bit, but it disappeared before I got a good look...." However, what Asahi wasn't expecting was for the green-eyed woman to drop the clothes she was holding and sprint toward him, pinning him to the couch with a serious expression.
In a tone that brooked no argument, she asked, "What color were his eyes?"
A bit shocked by the sudden change in attitude, the mostly white-haired man quickly answered, "Ah, his sclera was black, and he had white irises. But why is that important?"
Quickly standing up and bolting to the boys' room, Inko exclaimed "Shit, Izuku, please be there." But upon opening the door, she found no one. Looking back, she questioned the other person in the room, "Where are they?"
"They told me they were heading to Aincrad tonight. But Inko, what is going on? Do you know anything about this?" Standing up, he quickly walked toward Inko and put both hands on her shoulders with a worried expression.
Sighing and looking down a bit worried, she answered, "I only know a little. It's something he inherited from his father's side of the family. Hisashi never introduced me to any relatives, and I only knew him for seven years before he died. I only saw it twice, but whenever Hisashi's eyes turned that color, he lost all emotions and became cold. Afterwards, he'd always do something stupid and risky. The last time I saw them was two years ago, on the day he died," Inko explained, starting to cry midway through.
Looking concerned at his assistant, he gently asked her, "Inko, who exactly was Izuku's father, and how did he die?"
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At the same time, a couple of rooftops away...
"This should be far enough so they can't spot us, even if they search," Izuku stated, landing on the rooftop of a small skyscraper. He then opened his menu and started clicking around.
"So anyway, what's your big plan? I mean, you're the one who said we don't stand a chance against this Ban guy," Katsuki questioned his best friend, hands behind his head, looking at the menu.
Finally finding what he wanted, the green-haired boy took out two black cloaks: one with gold markings and the other with none. Throwing the one with gold markings to his friend, he continued clicking in the menu while saying,
"Remember these? They're the cloaks Kurenai made for us in case we ever needed to go hunting. They have built-in masks that hide our faces and the rare trait of camouflaging us in the shadows and dark, making it almost impossible to detect us at night like it is now." Looking back at his friend, he threw him his main weapon, a large two-handed greatsword with a beautifully crafted black guard featuring a panther in the middle, in a sleek black and blue leather sheath.
Catching it and strapping it to his back under the cloak, hiding it perfectly, Katsuki sighed, saying, "Gosh, why did Kurenai have to go extra flashy with my stuff? I mean, really—golden markings on stealth armor, and the panther on my sword guard. I think I'm slowly regretting flirting with her to get us free stuff." He then pulled the hood over his head, and a panther-like mask appeared on his face.
After strapping his new blade on his back, Izuku also pulled the hood over his head, and the same panther-like mask appeared on his face, minus the golden markings.
With the wind blowing their cloaks to the right, the green-haired boy turned to his friend and said, "Well, that's your problem. I quite like the all-black sheath she gave my new sword. But anyway, last time we underestimated the opponent's strength, so this time we'll come with our best weapons. No place for putting them in my inventory so they don't break. While my plan is not to engage in any fights, especially not with Ban, we can't rule out the possibility of fighting his strongest officers because I'm sure he's not working alone."
"So what you're trying to say is we'll try to sneak in and take the girl back without being seen, preferably," the other boy summed up, his gold-marked cloak undulating in the wind.
"Essentially, yes," the green-haired boy answered before jumping off the roof and continuing to hop from roof to roof, following the signal he was getting from the mark on Ban.
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30 minutes later
Unknown location
"Well, who would have thought that somewhere under New York, there's a giant compound like this? But the guards have been rather lackluster," the boy in all black stated, looking around the sci-fi-looking place with lots of long corridors.
"No kidding, but you know, this kinda feels like a dungeon in Aincrad. And just the fact that we're walking through something like this means that this Ban guy is quite influential and rich," the gilded boy concluded, following his friend.
Walking around a bit longer, they took out all the guards they came across before they could react and looked into some of the unlocked rooms. Most were sleeping quarters and storage rooms filled with all kinds of weapons and equipment.
"Wait, Izuku, come here. Look at this," Katsuki called, going into a storage room. He grabbed a glove from one of the tubes and put it on. The glove instantly resized to fit him and then constantly reshaped into different kinds of weapons.
"Whoa, what kind of technology is this? No, this isn't technology—it looks like Ban's wings. Is he trying to replicate his quirk in these gloves?" the green-eyed boy questioned, but as he looked at the glove, it started to malfunction and destroy itself.
"Well, it looks like this was just a prototype, but if this gets perfected, it could turn the balance of power in the world upside down," the crimson-eyed boy said before gathering all the other supplies in the room and handing them to Izuku to store in the inventory.
"Good idea. This will be helpful later on," the green-haired boy concluded while storing the rest.
After they finished their looting, they continued their way through the base, storing all other weapons and equipment they came across. Eventually, they arrived at a heavily guarded room with four men stationed outside the door.
Swiftly taking them out, they realized the door was locked. However, one of the guards—presumably the highest-ranking one—had the key to the room. Opening the door, it slid into the right side of the wall, revealing a room clad in red and gold furniture and accessories. In the middle was a large red sofa, and on it lay the purple-haired girl they had been searching for. She was still crying and covered in blood, with wounds that looked like they had been reopened.
"There she is," Izuku said, looking around the room for any more guards. "Go, Kacchan, let's grab her and get out of here quickly."
Quickly running in and picking up the girl, who was still in restraints, they intended to leave, but the door closed before them, and they heard a voice.
"My, my, while I expected you to come after me, I didn't think you'd be able to track down my hideout this quickly. You can count me impressed. It's not every day you find such talented individuals like yourselves, especially at such a young age. So what do you say? Put that girl back where you found her and join me. Do that, and I'll not only let you live but will also instantly promote you to a high-ranking officer. It's not a bad deal if you ask me..." But before he could continue, the ash-blonde boy interrupted him.
"Look, bird-for-brains, we're not here to join you, so how about you take that deal and shove it right up your ass where it belongs," the boy stated confidently, with Izuku nodding beside him.
"Well, bummer, but I didn't think you would consider it. So, have fun dying," Ban said before the girl's restraints levitated her upward, and two trap doors opened below the boys' feet, separating them into different tunnels.
'Shit, this completely caught me off guard,' the green-haired boy thought as he landed on his feet in another room. It was a large, circular chamber with a rounded roof that looked like a giant glass dome, separating the room from the endless depths of space behind it. Stars, suns, and nebulas were all in view. The floor had the same glassy texture, but this time there was a depiction of Earth underneath it.
"It's beautiful, isn't it? The depths of space and the atmosphere, all in one room. I hereby welcome you, bearer of the void veil, to my office," a cold voice said, coming from the edge of the room. A figure slowly walked toward the light—it was a man of average height and a lean build. He was wearing a sleek, dark suit reminiscent of a starry night sky, with shimmering, faintly glowing lines tracing constellations across its surface. His helmet, resembling an astronaut's with a mirrored visor, hid his face.
"Who are you?" the cloaked boy asked the mysterious man.
"My name is Nexus, but you can also call me the Star Harbinger. I'm a lieutenant of this organization named Eclipse, and today, I will serve as your executioner," the man, now identified as Nexus, stated before firing a blast of rainbow energy toward Izuku, who quickly drew his sword and sliced the blast in half vertically.
'Well, this didn't go as planned,' the green-eyed boy thought before engaging in combat with the Star Harbinger.
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Katsuki's POV, a bit earlier
'Crap, where the heck am I? I guess I got separated from Izuku, so this'll be up to me,' Katsuki thought as he looked around the room he was in.
The room was circular, with stone walls adorned with large, slowly turning gears. These gears, made of bronze and iron, rotated with a quiet, rhythmic ticking. The floor was a smooth, dark metal with engraved patterns of clock faces and gears, some of which were slightly raised. In the center of the room, there was a large, mechanical clock embedded into the floor. Its hands moved steadily, marking time. Above, a few large pendulums swung back and forth, their motion steady and predictable. The room was dimly lit by warm, amber lights set into the walls, designed to look like the faces of old pocket watches, casting long, soft shadows that moved as the gears turned.
"What kind of freaky room did I end up in?" Katsuki said, looking around the peculiar room.
"What are you calling freaky, you little brat? This room is a work of art, representing the very essence of time. A kid like you has no right to call it freaky—you haven't even seen the true beauty of the concept that is time yet," a man said in a loud, annoying but passionate voice.
Looking toward where the voice came from, Katsuki saw a man clad in a dark, flowing cloak adorned with intricate clockwork patterns that shimmered with a faint, ethereal light. His mask, resembling a clock face with moving hands, obscured his features and added to his mysterious aura. His eyes were visible through the mask.
"And who the hell are you supposed to be, clock face?" the crimson-eyed boy asked with a deadpan expression behind his mask.
"Insolent brat! I'll have you know I'm the second lieutenant of Eclipse, Tempus, also known as the Chrono Warden. And for your insolence, you shall die here and now!" the man screamed at the top of his lungs before stretching his hand out in front. His eyes glowed with a faint golden light, and the hands of his clock mask moved slightly to the left, clockwise.
Suddenly, the floor beneath the crimson-eyed boy shot up a pillar, launching him directly toward the pendulums. One pendulum, in particular, that was about to hit him suddenly sped up. Not hesitating, the boy charged up a sword skill and cut the giant thing in half. Then, landing on the floor, without wasting a second, he charged straight at the clock-faced man.