"You want me to step in?" Kaito asked.
"I'm just saying," Makoto teased.
She tapped his chest with her index finger.
"If you fix this world, the American Makoto might be very grateful. You could have two of me. Double the happiness."
Kaito raised an eyebrow.
"Is that an offer?" Kaito joked back.
Makoto laughed. She pushed his shoulder playfully and leaned back against the headboard of the hotel bed.
Kaito smiled.
He looked out the window at the city lights.
"I never actually wanted to be a hero," Kaito said quietly.
"..."
Makoto stopped laughing. She looked at him.
"When my quirk first showed up years ago, I didn't feel any burning sense of justice," Kaito explained, keeping his eyes on the skyline. "I didn't want to save the world. I just wanted to work my shifts as a cashier at FamilyMart. I wanted to help Grandma Saki at the grocery store. I accepted that I was just going to earn a living like anyone else. I even went to vocational school instead of going to hero schools."
Makoto listened closely.
"Even when I officially entered the hero industry and became a manager," Kaito continued, turning his head to look at her. "I kept that mindset. I actually encoded a hundred-meter probability field around myself."
Makoto tilted her head. "A probability field?"
"Yeah," Kaito nodded. "I warped reality so any random villain attack or traffic accident would literally resolve itself before it got near me. If a villain was running down my street and causing trouble, he would trip on his own shoelace and knock himself out before I even saw him. I avoided everything."
Makoto stared at him. She processed the information.
"You went out of your way to do absolutely nothing," Makoto said.
"..." Kaito said, walking over and sitting on the edge of the bed. "Look at All Might. Look at Endeavor, Star and Stripe or even Captain Celebrity. They actively hunt villains. They lay their lives down. I never did that. Every single time I fought as Hero X, it was entirely passive."
He counted on his fingers.
"Someone broke my peace," Kaito said. "Someone harmed my grandma. Or someone bothered my friends. I never actively hunted anyone down nor I killed anyone. I just fought to protect my own peace of mind."
Makoto crossed her legs on the bed. She placed her hand over his.
"Peace of mind," Makoto repeated.
She looked him directly in the eyes.
"You're first appearance back in Musutafu fire disaster or you fought All For One in Ota Ward," Makoto listed. "You fought those engineered Nomu back in Naruhata. You saved Iwao and his family. You saved thousands of people back in Sky Egg. And you even stopped a literal global apocalypse from destroying the planet."
"..." Kaito stayed quiet.
"You can call it self-interest," Makoto said firmly. "You can call it being lazy. But to the billions of people you saved, Hero X is the ultimate beacon of hope. You did what even the Symbol of Peace couldn't do. Even those thousands of pro heroes combined can't do what Hero X did."
"..."
Kaito looked at her hand resting on his.
He felt a sudden, intense warmth in his chest. He kept his selfish motives a secret for years.
Hearing Makoto lay it out like that and completely accept him made him feel understood.
"Thank you," Kaito said softly.
Makoto smiled brightly. Her eyes shined with pride.
She squeezed his hand.
"So," Makoto asked, her voice rising with excitement. "Do you still want to be a hero? Are we going to spread the halo of Hero X in this timeline right now?"
"Hahaha..." Kaito looked at her excited face. He let out a loud, genuine laugh.
"I am a hero," Kaito smiled. "Whether it's for peace of mind or just for fun."
Makoto clapped her hands together.
"Perfect!" Makoto cheered. "Where do we start? Do we establish an agency here first?"
Kaito shook his head.
"No," Kaito answered flatly.
Makoto froze. She dropped her hands.
"What?" Makoto asked, completely confused. "What do you mean, no?"
"We still have a contract," Kaito pointed out. "We need to finish our professional obligations in our own world before we start building a new hero agency from scratch here."
"..."
Makoto stared at him. Her mouth fell open slightly.
She groaned loudly and flopped backward onto the mattress, staring up at the ceiling.
"You are unbelievable," Makoto complained, throwing her arms out. "We just had a massive emotional breakthrough about your destiny. And you are worried about finishing a consulting contract for the Sand Hero."
Kaito laughed out loud.
"Work is work," Kaito said simply.
--<>--
The morning sun hit the streets of Tokyo.
Kaito and Makoto walked down the busy sidewalk.
Makoto wore her casual jacket and sunglasses.
She looked around nervously. She kept her head down when a group of salarymen walked past them.
"Are you sure no one will recognize me?" Makoto whispered, pulling the collar of her jacket up. "I manage Captain Celebrity in this world. I should be famous in the hero industry here."
"No one will recognize you," Kaito answered. He kept his hands in his pockets. "I altered your existence on a conceptual level when we crossed over. People can see your face, but their brains will physically refuse to connect you to the Makoto Tsukauchi of this world. You are completely different in their minds."
"What about you?" Makoto asked.
She stopped talking a second later.
Kaito Arisaka didn't exist here. He didn't need a disguise. He could walk right into a police station, and no one would care.
They reached the corner of the commercial district.
Makoto stopped walking. She pointed across the street at a large retail building. A generic clothing store occupied the ground floor.
"That should be a Golden Bites," Makoto said, staring at the mannequins in the window. "That is our flagship location in Tokyo."
Kaito looked at the clothing store.
"Guess they sell shirts here instead of burgers," Kaito said.
They walked further into the city. They reached the massive central plaza.
In their home world, a giant bronze statue of Hero X stood in the very center of this plaza, erected by the citizens to commemorate him stopping the apocalypse.
Here, the plaza just featured a boring concrete water fountain.
"It feels really empty," Makoto muttered, looking at the water splashing into the basin.
CRASH.
A loud explosion echoed from the next street over.
Kaito and Makoto turned their heads. They walked toward the noise.
A villain with large, jagged rock appendages smashed a car into a storefront. Civilians screamed and ran away in panic.
SWISH.
Kamui Woods swung down from a streetlight. He threw his wooden branches forward, trying to bind the villain's arms.
"Preemptive Binding..." Kamui Woods yelled.
Before he could finish the move, a massive shadow covered the street.
THUD.
Mt. Lady stepped over a three-story building, growing to her giant size. Her boot crushed a chunk of public railing.
She swung her leg and kicked the rock villain directly into a concrete wall.
"Canyon Cannon!" Mt. Lady yelled, striking a pose for the cameras.
Kamui Woods groaned, dropping his branches.
Kaito and Makoto stood safely in the crowd, watching the fight.
The civilians around them cheered wildly. They pulled out their flip phones and smartphones, snapping photos of Mt. Lady and completely ignoring the destroyed street.
Makoto pushed her sunglasses down her nose. She looked at the pro heroes.
"That was terrible," Makoto criticized, crossing her arms.
Kaito glanced at her.
"Look at the collateral damage," Makoto pointed at the broken railing and the cracked wall. "She has zero structural technique. And absolutely no team synergy with Kamui Woods. They are competing instead of coordinating."
--<>--
FWOOSH.
A massive blast of fire erupted from the next city they went to.
Endeavor landed heavily on the pavement to handle a secondary villain that tried to run away.
His fire beard burned brightly. He fired a quick burst of Hell Spider, melting the pavement and singing the side of a nearby office building.
Makoto shook her head.
"Look at Endeavor's output," Makoto said. "He wastes too much kinetic energy. In our world, the Burn Data App you created turned him into the absolute infrastructure of Japan. He responds to disasters with perfect precision. Here, he's just using brute force."
She pushed her glasses back up.
"Without your Golden Manager standard, they look like uncoordinated amateurs," Makoto said confidently. "Our heroes would have knocked that villain out in seconds without damaging a single brick."
"You really can't turn the manager brain off," Kaito smiled.
"It's frustrating to watch," Makoto sighed. "Sir Nighteye died in this timeline. In our world, his agency is basically the biggest intelligence agency of Japan. He coordinates all the hero perfectly. Here, the heroes are just flying blind."
The heroes subdued the villains. The police arrived to clean up the mess.
Kaito and Makoto walked away from the cheering crowd.
They found a small ramen shop a few blocks away and sat down in a private wooden booth.
Kaito ordered two bowls of pork ramen. He paid the owner with cash from his pocket.
"I'm really excited what can we do on this reality, Kaito." Makoto said, breaking her wooden chopsticks apart. "But we have the Snatch contract."
"I know," Kaito said, pulling his bowl closer.
"Can you adjust the time?" Makoto asked. She took a bite of noodles. "We slept in the hotel here last night. If we go back exactly when we left, it will still be night in our world. I really don't want to lose a whole day of work."
"I can set our arrival time in the morning," Kaito agreed.
He took a sip of his hot tea.
He thought about the temporal structure of this universe.
It ran in a straight line.
There were no chaotic branches here like the ones All For One created.
If he officially debuted as Hero X and started intervening, he didn't know what the timeline would do.
It might shatter into a thousand new branches. Or it might just aggressively rewrite the entire future of this reality..
'Well, let's try being a hero. Instead of being a vigiliante this time.'
When they finished their professional obligations at home, they would come back here.
Hero X was going to step out and 'SNAP' this reality.
--<>--
VWOOSH.
A spatial rift opened in the living room of the Naruhata Apartment.
Kaito and Makoto stepped out.
The morning sun shined through the glass doors of the greenhouse.
"Let's get to the agency," Makoto said, grabbing her phone and typing quickly.
Kaito nodded. He snapped his fingers.
SNAP.
His casual clothes vanished, replaced instantly by his pristine white suit.
"Let's finish Snatch's contract and all my online contracts here first," Kaito smiled, heading for the front door.
--<>--
Location: The Arctic - Unknown Coordinates
Deep below the ice, the main meeting room buzzed with noise.
The walls were made of reinforced titanium. Cold blue lights illuminated the massive space.
The leaders of the underworld stood around a long metal table.
They were just busted out of prison a few hours ago, and the adrenaline was still wearing off.
"I still can't believe we are out," Bruno laughed, cracking his knuckles.
Valdo stood at the end of the table, rubbing his right shoulder.
He ignored his crew and stared at the metal blast doors at the front of the room.
Wolfram leaned against the wall, tapping the metal headpiece on his skull.
Swordkil, Noboru, and Daigo checked their weapons next to him, making sure their gear was loaded.
Flect Turn floated two feet off the floor. His dark blue robes draped perfectly. He didn't speak to anyone. His subordinates wad also present, and they managed to break out Beros in Otheon.
Number Six stood in the corner, his face completely wrapped in bandages.
Nine sat quietly.
Gigantomachia stood in the very back of the room. He was too large for the chairs. He breathed heavily, tears streaming down his rocky face.
"Master," Gigantomachia wept loudly. "Master is finally back."
Tomura Shigaraki sat in a chair near the front. He scratched his neck slowly.
Mummy, Slice, and Chimera stood behind him, keeping their hands near their weapons.
They didn't trust the Gollini mafia or the Humarise organization or the American mercenaries.
Anna Scervino sat in a chair across from Shigaraki.
She kept her hands folded in her lap. She stared blankly at the metal table, ignoring the noise around her.
HISS.
The heavy blast doors slid open.
Footsteps echoed on the metal floor.
Step. Step. Step.
All For One walked into the room. Dr. Garaki walked closely behind him.
The temperature in the room plummeted.
The conversations died instantly.
Gigantomachia stopped crying and dropped to his knees.
It wasn't a quirk. It was pure, suffocating pressure.
All For One didn't project his aura. He didn't try to intimidate them.
The raw weight of fifteen absorbed variants rested inside his body. His base existence was exponentially denser than any normal human.
Valdo stopped breathing. His knees buckled slightly, forcing him to lean heavily against the table.
Shigaraki stopped scratching his neck. He stared at his nominal master. He hadn't seen him in years.
A deep, primal fear settled in his mind.
The dark Abyss marks on everyone's shoulders burned fiercely.
All For One walked to the head of the table. He sat down in a large metal chair. He looked at the assembled leaders, enjoying the sheer terror they projected.
"Begin, Doctor," All For One commanded quietly.
Garaki stepped forward. He tapped a button on a small remote.
BEEP.
A large holographic screen projected above the center of the table.
"I will be brief," Garaki told the room. He adjusted his round goggles. "Master was never truly imprisoned by Hero X. The 2D dimension trap was a minor inconvenience."
The villains listened closely.
"During his absence, Master unlocked the absolute pinnacle of quirk and technology evolution," Garaki announced, pointing at the screen. "Time travel."
"..."
The room remained silent, but the shock was visible.
Wolfram raised his eyebrows. Flect Turn lowered himself slightly to the floor.
"We have successfully traversed the temporal plane," Garaki continued. "We have mapped the branch timelines. And during these excursions, we discovered the greatest secret of our era."
Garaki pressed the remote again.
The hologram shifted. An ID photo of a young man with black hair appeared.
"This is Kaito Arisaka," Garaki stated. "The Golden Manager. The founder of Arisaka Consulting."
Shigaraki glared at the screen. He hated this Golden Manager together with Hero X.
Garaki pressed the button again.
The photo of Kaito shifted. The black hair turned white. The casual clothes turned into a pristine white suit.
"He is Hero X," Garaki revealed.
"..."
"..."
The room froze.
Valdo gripped the edge of the metal table. His knuckles turned white.
Shigaraki's eyes went completely wide. He grabbed the armrests of his chair.
The corporate manager he hated and the god-tier vigilante his underground enemies worshipped were the exact same person.
"Kaito Arisaka is Hero X," Garaki repeated to let it sink in.
Valdo couldn't stop himself. His idolization of Hero X overrode his fear for a single second.
"Did you kill him?" Valdo blurted out loudly. "When you went to the past. Did you kill him?"
"..."
The room went dead silent. Mummy and Slice flinched. Asking the master a direct, challenging question was a death sentence.
All For One looked at Valdo.
A deep, rumbling laugh escaped All For One's mask.
"...Hahaha"
He found the question funny. He was in a fantastic mood. His power was overflowing. He didn't care about the mafia boss's insolence.
Garaki stepped in quickly to cover the truth.
"We discovered that changing the past does not alter our present," Garaki lied smoothly, completely hiding the fact that All For One fled in terror from a young Kaito. "Killing him in the past would only create a severed branch timeline. Master left him alone. Our timeline requires a different approach."
"..."
Valdo exhaled slowly, realizing he just survived a fatal mistake.
Garaki turned back to the room.
"We are here to share this power with you," Garaki announced.
He typed on a small datapad. The hologram changed to a diagram of the multiverse tree.
"Changing the past doesn't rewrite our present," Garaki explained. "Which means we can travel to a branch timeline, locate the past version of ourselves, and kill them without erasing our own bodies."
He pointed at the tree.
"If you kill your past self, your existences will merge," Garaki stated. "You will absorb their baseline strength, their accumulated energy, and their quirk adaptations."
Wolfram stood up straight. A massive grin spread across his scarred face.
"You are telling us," Wolfram said, his voice rough. "If we murder ourselves, we get stronger?"
"Exponentially stronger," Garaki confirmed. "Master has already absorbed fifteen of his own variants. You felt the result when he walked into this room."
The leaders looked at All For One. The suffocating pressure made perfect sense now.
"We have mass-produced the temporal belts," Garaki said.
He walked over to a large metal crate sitting near the wall.
Thud.
He kicked the latch open. Dozens of heavy mechanical belts sat inside the foam padding.
"You will each take a belt," Garaki ordered. "You will travel to the coordinates I provide. Find yourself, kill and absorb them."
The room erupted into dark, eager conversations.
Flect Turn looked at his own hands, imagining the power he could achieve.
Nine was also looking forward.
Shigaraki scratched his neck aggressively, a twisted smile forming on his cracked lips.
He could finally gain the power to turn Hero X or that Kaito into dust.
Anna Scervino sat in her chair. She didn't speak or smile.
She didn't want to kill her past self. She wanted to save her. She wanted to put the belt on, go back in time, and tell her younger self become stronger or even avoid using her quirk.
All For One glanced at everyone. He knew exactly what they were thinking.
He didn't care.
The covenants mark controlled all of their lives.
Garaki grabbed the first temporal belt out of the crate. He held it up under the blue lights.
"Prepare yourselves," Garaki told the leaders, handing the belt to Wolfram.
...
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(9 Advanced Chapters)
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A/n: Forgot to release, it thought I already scheduled it together with JJK... Tehee~