The silence lasted for longer than Yuta intended. Be it the reporter, camera man, or everyone else in the surrounding area listening, all blanked out at his last words.
'Did I overdo it?' The silence lasted a second longer.
Then ...
"...What?" A police officer blinked.
The paramedic pushing Inasa's stretcher nearly let go of the handles.
"...Retire?"
Setsuna whose body was still in multiple parts, scouting the district for any stragglers was stunned.
"Huh? ... No way."
In the other district, Momo who was tending to civilians was equally dumbfounded at what she just heard. "Hold on .. wait, what did he just say?"
Hundreds of kilometers away—
A restaurant in Osaka fell completely silent. A salaryman slowly lowered his coffee, eyes completely incredulous.
"...He can't be serious."
The same thought was shared across all of Japan.
"Did the kid just say what I think he said?"
"Retirement?"
"Does he understand what that means? He's practically giving up his hero career."
"Damn. Live long enough, and you really will see everything."
"Did that lady just ... Bully a kid into quitting being a hero?" Interns everywhere at their respective work studies. Salarymen on their way to work. Mothers, fathers, heroes and sidekicks.
Across every park and shopping mall to households and alleyways.
_
In a hospital near Kanagawa.
Midnight covered her lips in shock at what she just heard.
"No way, ... Is that Yuta?"
"Ribbit. This is bad."
_
Inside Endeavor's Agency—
Bakugo's pupils shrank.
"...The hell...?"
For the first time since the broadcast began, he looked genuinely rattled.
_
At U.A. High,
The silence was almost deafening.
"He ... He just ..." Present Mic's mouth hung slightly open in disbelief.
Recovery Girl who had come to pick something up slowly lowered her cane. At the corner, All Might's face had practically turned white.
The only sound was the clenching of fists caused by Aizawa on the table.
"...Idiot."
_
Inside Hero Commission Headquarters...
The President remained seated before the enormous monitor.
Her expression didn't change as her hands quickly took out a receiver and pressed the button. "Get this under control. Quickly."
_
Public opinion quickly swept through all of Japan. No one had expected those words.
Least of all ...
"W-Wait!"
Back in Aichi— Akari finally snapped out of it, her face losing all color. "N-No! That's not what I meant!" She took an involuntary step forward, almost tripping over the uneven pavement while inwardly cursing herself for such a blunder. "I wasn't saying you should retire! You've misunderstood my question!"
Yuta blinked. "...I did?"
Akari nodded so quickly it was almost frantic.
"Y-Yes! That's not what I was trying to say at all!"
She tightened her grip on the microphone. "I was asking how you viewed your responsibility. I never said you should give up becoming a hero."
Yuta looked genuinely surprised.
"...Really?"
"...Of course!"
His brows furrowed. "...But if I'm responsible for everything you listed..."
He gestured vaguely toward the ruined district surrounding them. "...Wouldn't retiring solve the problem?"
Akari froze.
"It... It wouldn't."
"Why not?"
"I..." She opened her mouth but couldn't really say anything.
"I never said this was all your fault. I just ..."
Yuta looked at her, face growing even more confused. "Isn't that what you thought?"
"No. Of course not."
"Ok ... Then ... Why ask me all this?"
"... That ..."
Seeing her speechless look, he resisted the urge to sigh.
"I mean, if becoming a hero was the mistake... then surely not becoming one anymore is the obvious solution."
"...Isn't it?"
"Okay! That's enough!"
A blur of red feathers descended between them.
Hawks landed lightly on the broken asphalt, one wing spreading just enough to separate the reporter from Yuta.
He laughed awkwardly, scratching the back of his head.
"Haha... I think we've all had enough excitement for one morning, don't you?"
He glanced sideways at Yuta.
"...And you."
His smile twitched.
"Maybe don't announce your retirement on live television five minutes after saving an entire city."
Yuta looked at him.
"...Was that a bad time?"
Hawks stared at him for three long seconds. "...Kid, there is no good time for that. Got it?"
He let out a long sigh before pinching the bridge of his nose.
"...Right."
He turned away from Yuta and faced the camera instead. "Since everyone in Japan is watching.. I guess I'll say a few words."
Hawks' usual easygoing smile returned.
"First things first."
"My intern isn't retiring." He glanced sideways at Yuta.
"...Right?"
'Should I go with it?' Yuta remained silent, seriously contemplating whether to play along or blow everything up. After all, he himself was long fed up with this treatment.
"Right."
A collective sigh of relief escaped countless households across the country. Akari most especially.
"I think everyone's a little emotional today."
"Which... honestly, is understandable." He gestured toward the devastated industrial district around them.
"A Nomu appeared, and the League of Villains unfortunately managed to escape capture, leaving the monster to destroy part of the city and injure multiple heroes."
Hawks slapped a hand over Yuta's shoulder. "Thankfully, he was capable of subduing said monster alongside every other Nomu it released. That just shows that despite the fact that he hasn't exactly had what you'd call a relaxing couple of months, he is here to help the people of Japan."
A faint chuckle escaped him.
"So maybe we shouldn't treat anything he says immediately after all that as a formal career announcement."
A few nervous laughs spread among the people standing nearby.
"As for responsibility..."
His tone became a little more serious. "I don't think anyone would disagree that recent events have left scars across the country."
"People lost family. Friends. Colleagues. Heroes. Everyone's searching for answers."
He paused. "But there's an important difference between understanding why people ask difficult questions and expecting one sixteen-year-old to carry an entire nation's grief on his shoulders."
Silence settled over the scene. Hawks continued calmly.
"The League of Villains chose their targets and All For One made his decisions. The people responsible for those tragedies are exactly the people who committed them."
His gaze swept over the assembled cameras.
"So let's be careful."
"When we're hurting, it's easy to look for one face to attach all that pain to."
"It's understandable. But it isn't always fair."
He smiled again. "And personally, I'd rather not lose a promising future hero because he spent too much time convincing himself that every bad thing happening in Japan is somehow his fault."
Several officers quietly lowered their heads. Even Akari found herself unable to meet his eyes.
Hawks folded his wings. "So, let's all take a breath. The city is safe and there were no casualties. So in my view, today's story should be about the young hero who just saved it."
For a second, nobody spoke. Then—
Clap! Clap! Clap!
One police officer began clapping. Another joined in. A paramedic followed. Soon, scattered applause spread through the rescue workers around the crater. In front of TV screens, people watching also followed suit.
In Musutafu, "Thank God." The U.A high staff all let out sighs of relief.
"...Well." Present Mic rubbed the back of his neck with an awkward grin. "That... could've gone a whole lot worse."
"It almost did," Ectoplasm muttered quietly.
Recovery Girl let out a long sigh. "You have to pay close attention to that child Aizawa. One of these days, he is going to give me heart failure."
Aizawa closed his eyes and walked to the corner to find his sleeping bag. "Thankfully, Hawks is more mature than he acts sometimes.
Across the room, Toshinori Yagi silently wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand and exhaled.
Just then ...
Brrr... Brrr...
The sound of vibrations came from his phone
"...Excuse me."
Looking at the familiar number, the symbol of peace sighed and walked out of the staff room.
Stepping out into the hallway, he slid the door shut behind him before answering the call.
"Tsukauchi. What's the matter?" In all likelihood, he was calling for the live broadcast.
The voice on the other end spoke rapidly.
Toshinori's relaxed expression disappeared almost instantly.
"...What?" His eyes widened.
_
Far away...
The towering headquarters of the Hero Public Safety Commission overlooked the capital beneath a clear morning sky. Inside the highest executive office, the Commission President quietly watched the broadcast come to an end.
Only after Hawks smoothly redirected the conversation did the tension in her shoulders finally ease.
"...Reliable as always." A sigh of relief escaped her lips. Hawks had managed to defuse what could have become a national disaster in less than three minutes.
Had he arrived even thirty seconds later... She didn't particularly want to imagine the consequences.
A hero retiring was nothing unusual. Veteran heroes retired every year.
But... A first-year U.A. student announcing his retirement on live national television immediately after saving an entire city... That was something else entirely.
The symbolism alone would have been catastrophic. Hero society was already hanging by a thread and in the midst of all this, the boy had unknowingly become one of the faces of the next generation.
The survivor of the Yamanote Line. The student who stood against All For One in Kamino. The teenager who had just defeated an unprecedented Nomu.
If someone like that abandoned the path of becoming a hero... What message would that send? That even heroes themselves no longer believed Hero Society was worth protecting?
That saving people only led to guilt? That becoming a hero meant becoming society's scapegoat?
How many children watching today would abandon that same dream?
How many parents would push against it even if they didn't? How many active heroes would decide that being a hero was still worth it?
The timing could not have been worse. Confidence in Hero Society had already reached its lowest point in decades.
Public anxiety. The loss of All Might. The attacks on multiple prefectures.The Quirk thefts. The League of Villains still at large.
One careless moment, and all of that fear could have crystallized into something far more difficult to control.
'No.' That outcome could never be allowed.
She opened her eyes. "The League."
Immediately, one of the recently installed assistants stepped forward with a tablet in hand.
"We've searched every available lead, ma'am."
She shook her head. "There's no trace of the League of Villains. It appears they were extracted from the scene."
The President frowned.
"...Extracted?"
"Yes, ma'am. The only eyewitness before the media arrived was a first-year Work Study student from Shiketsu High. Inasa Yoarashi. He was assigned under Hero X-Less and pursued the High-End Nomu after the transport convoy carrying the league was attacked. He is currently unconscious and his prior explanation leads us to believe it was a warp based teleportation quirk responsible."
"Warp? You mean Kurogiri."
"The possibility exists mam. However, the description of the visuals are ... Oddly different. We believe this might be another warp user." It had been two weeks and the last known sighting of the warpgate villain was in Chiba where he was allegedly captured by the White Fang Vigilante.
If Kurogiri was with the league, then a lot of problems would resurface.
The President's fingers tapped lightly against the desk.
"...The Nomu?"
The assistant looked back at another page. "Destroyed, ma'am. According to the responding heroes, nothing remained."
"...Not even a body."
The President's brows drew together. 'A creature with regeneration on that scale... completely erased.'
Her thoughts immediately shifted. 'Then Akutami Yuta possesses far more firepower than our previous assessments suggested. That aside, even after All For One's death... The league remains just as dangerous if they're still capable of deploying monsters like that.' Her tapping increased, portraying her agitation. The shortage of heroes over the country was growing increasingly aggravating.
She had just received words late last night that several hero agencies had been targeted by escaped convicts pumped on Trigger enhancements. The agencies they attacked had either been destroyed with multiple casualties, or closed down due to the heroes themselves retiring. Japan stretched far too thin.
If this carried on without a major change, in the next few weeks, more would follow into retirement and Japan would become wastaland.
'Is there no other way to salvage this?' She thought, feeling reluctant to go through with her current plan. The outrage it would cause would bring about a major backlash.
"Madame."
Her assistant's words drew her out of her thoughts.
"Yes?"
"The press conference scheduled for this afternoon..."
She paused.
"...Should we postpone it?"
"Public opinion is extremely volatile following today's incident."
For several seconds, the President remained silent.
Then she slowly shook her head.
"...No. It has already been delayed long enough." She stood from her chair and walked toward the enormous window overlooking the city below.
"The longer uncertainty continues, the greater the damage to society." What people needed currently was to be reassured that things would be ok and everything would go back to normal. Unfortunately, the way things were headed didn't seem so fortunate.
To prevent further damage and destruction, desperate times call for desperate measures.
A government that continued hiding behind closed doors would only invite further speculation.
"The schedule remains unchanged." Her reflection stared back at her through the glass. "We address the nation today."
Behind her, the assistants immediately bowed.
"Understood, Madam President."