The midday sun hit the open-air patio of the restaurant.
Step. Step.
"ORDER UP!"
"WAITER!"
"TABLE FOR TWO PLEASE!"
"I'M ALREADY HERE FOR 30 MINUTES! WHERE'S MY ODER?!"
Waiters walked between the crowded tables, carrying trays of grilled meat and rice.
Makoto sat at a corner metal table.
Slurp.
She held a pair of wooden chopsticks and picked up a piece of pork from her bowl of ramen.
Kaito sat across from her. He ignored his food completely.
His laptop sat open on the table. He typed on the keyboard with one hand.
A small, holographic projection of Eve hovered above the screen.
Clack. Clack.
"Close out the tech sector positions," Kaito told the Eve 0.2 quietly. "Move the capital into the international index funds and hold it."
[Executing trades now, Boss,] Eve chimed softly from the computer speakers. [Positions closed. Total liquid capital sits at forty-five million dollars.]
Makoto stopped chewing. She swallowed her food and put her chopsticks down.
"Forty-five million?" Makoto asked, leaning over the table. "I know we have billions of yen sitting in our accounts back home. But bringing physical cash across realities in that volume would just ruin Japan here. How did you get clean local money in just a week?"
Kaito took his hand off the keyboard.
"Eve runs predictive algorithms on the global stock exchange," Kaito explained, grabbing his glass of iced tea. "She analyzes market trends and corporate data ten thousand times faster than any human broker. We just bought low and sold high a few million times. The money is entirely local and perfectly legal."
Makoto let out a soft laugh.
"You really don't waste any time," Makoto said, shaking her head. "Well, we need money to start our lives here. Now we have it."
Kaito reached into his jacket pocket.
He pulled out two small plastic cards and slid them across the metal table.
Makoto picked them up.
They were official Japanese identification cards. One had her photo, and the other had Kaito's photo.
Makoto looked at the text on the cards. Her real name, Makoto Tsukauchi, was printed clearly next to her picture. Kaito's real name was printed on his card.
"Huh? You used our real names?" Makoto was confused, turning the card over to check the holographic government seal.
She looked up at him. "You know the Makoto of this timeline is in America right now managing Captain Celebrity. And you don't even exist here. If anyone looks at this, they are going to get very confused."
Kaito took a sip of his tea.
"I encoded a conceptual trick into those specific identities," Kaito explained. "We are fully registered in the national database. The government servers show our birth certificates, our taxes, and our residency. But it comes with a mental block."
Makoto tilted her head, genuinely curious.
"If a police officer or a pro hero looks at that card," Kaito continued, pointing at the plastic in her hand. "Their eyes will see the text. But their brain will refuse to store the information in their short-term memory. The name will just blur out in their head. If they hear us say our names out loud, it will just sound like a burst of static."
"Like this... BLEEEP..."
Makoto looked down at the card again, tracing the edge with her thumb.
"So we exist on paper," Makoto said slowly. "But we are completely invisible to their memory."
"Hmm," Kaito nodded. "We can buy a house, rent an office, and open bank accounts. No one will ever connect you to the American Makoto, and no one will ever realize I am a nobldy."
Makoto slipped the ID cards into her purse.
She picked her chopsticks back up and stirred her noodles.
She looked down at the table for a long moment. A heavy thought weighed on her mind.
"Can I ask you something?" Makoto asked quietly.
"Go ahead," Kaito said.
Makoto looked up at him.
"It's about Mirai," Makoto said, her voice turning serious. "In our world, he is alive and well. In this timeline, he died during the Shie Hassaikai raid. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth knowing what happened to him."
She rested her hands on the table.
"You have reality-warping powers," Makoto pointed out. "You can jump to specific points in time. Why didn't we just jump back to the exact minute before he died? We could have stopped Overhaul in the past and saved him."
Kaito leaned back in his chair.
"Time travel is messy, Makoto," Kaito said gently. "If we jump back and change a fixed event in the past, it sends temporal ripples all the way up the branch. It changes the present in unpredictable ways. The timeline might fragment."
He looked at the people walking past their table on the sidewalk.
"Don't worry," Kaito said. "I have a plan. We are going to handle things right here in the present."
Makoto listened closely, but she still felt lost.
"Plus," Kaito added, a small smirk forming on his face. "I need a guarantor."
Makoto blinked.
"A guarantor?" Makoto repeated.
"I am opening a hero agency from scratch in this timeline," Kaito stated. "I am twenty-seven years old. I have zero history in the hero industry here. I didn't join any Hero Schools and I've never put those in my background. So I need someone who can recommend me."
"..." Makoto stared at him.
The connection completely didn't sink in with her. She had absolutely no idea what Kaito was planning to do.
"What does a guarantor have to do with Mirai?" Makoto asked, completely puzzled.
"You'll know..." Kaito just laughed.
--<>--
Step. Step. Step.
Kaito and Makoto walked up to the municipal cemetery.
It was already late evening.
Crick. Crick.
Crickets chirped near the outer stone walls.
They were the only two people inside this place.
They planned this specifically for the night to avoid any morning visitors.
Makoto looked at the rows of gray headstones passing by.
She blinked.
Her walking pace slowed down.
The conversation from the restaurant suddenly clicked in her head.
"Wait," Makoto said, grabbing Kaito's sleeve.
Kaito stopped and looked at her.
"The guarantor," Makoto said, her eyes widening in realization. "That's why we didn't jump back in time to stop the raid. You'll just resurrect him directly?"
Kaito grinned.
"You finally put it together," Kaito said.
Makoto looked out at the dark cemetery. She wasn't scared at all.
A genuine sense of wonder washed over her.
"I've never seen you do this before," Makoto admitted, stepping closer to him. "Resurrecting someone from the dead. I'm actually really curious."
"Just watch," Kaito replied.
They walked to the top of a small hill.
A polished black headstone sat under an old oak tree.
Makoto stopped in front of it.
Dozens of fresh flower bouquets covered the grass.
Small incense sticks sat in a wooden holder. A handcrafted All Might action figure rested on the top corner of the stone.
"Mirai Sasaki," Makoto read the engraved name.
Kaito looked at the massive pile of offerings.
"He was a truly great person," Kaito said softly. "People really cried for him. They respected him. Even though the Mirai of this timeline doesn't know me at all, I still feel incredibly close to him because of our time together back home."
Kaito stepped up to the edge of the grass.
SNAP.
He snapped his fingers.
His casual clothes vanished instantly. A pristine white suit took their place. His black hair turned completely white.
A red necktie wrapped around his collar. Gold-rimmed glasses rested on his nose, and the signature X mark appeared.
He shifted completely into Hero X.
Makoto stood a few feet away in her casual jacket, watching the transformation.
Kaito kept his hands in his pockets. He looked down at the flowers.
"A person dies three times," Kaito told Makoto quietly.
Makoto listened closely.
"The first time is when a bullet pierces their heart or a disease ruins their body," Kaito explained. "The second time is when they are lowered into the ground."
He pointed at the fresh bouquets and the action figure.
"The third time is when they are completely forgotten by the living," Kaito said. "Mirai is only two-thirds dead. His students and his friends still carry his memory...
And right now he gets his second chance, a bright future."
Kaito let out a short laugh.
"Of course, explaining how he came back from the dead to the everyone is entirely his problem," Kaito joked. "I'm not dealing with that headache."
Makoto shook her head and smiled.
Kaito raised his right hand.
SNAP.
The quiet cemetery distorted.
FZZZT.
Red and black digital pixels ripped through the empty air directly above the headstone.
The sheer force of the reality warp made the air feel heavy.
The dirt on the grave did not move at all. The ground stayed perfectly intact.
The resurrection happened entirely in the air.
BZZT. BZZT.
The pixels violently slammed together.
A white human skeleton materialized out of the static.
Thick red muscle fibers wrapped around the bones in seconds.
THUMP. THUMP.
Internal organs and a pumping nervous system flashed in and out of existence as the glitching energy forced them into reality.
It was a terrifying, biological creation.
Skin rapidly covered the muscles.
A sharp gray suit formed over the body. Green and yellow hair grew on the head.
The pixelated static cut out.
THUD.
A living, breathing Mirai Sasaki dropped onto the soft grass in front of his own headstone.
--<>--
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
The sterile smell of rubbing alcohol and bleached sheets filled the room.
Mirai Sasaki felt cold. He felt incredibly weak.
He remembered the agonizing, tearing pain in his chest where Overhaul drove the stone spike completely through his body.
He remembered looking up.
"Sir... Please live!"
Mirio was standing over him, crying.
Mirai forced his eyes open.
He pushed his Foresight quirk one final time. He looked directly into his student's future.
He saw a bright, shining path. Mirio stood tall, smiling, saving lives.
He was going to be a great hero.
A deep, comforting peace settled over Mirai. He did his job. He protected the future.
BEEEEEEEEEP.
The heart monitor faded into white noise. Total darkness consumed his mind.
He let go of his consciousness.
And then the peaceful darkness shattered.
FZZZT.
A loud, aggressive burst of static ripped right through his head.
Bright, blinding white light pierced his vision.
Glitchy, two-dimensional graffiti and red and black pixels scrambled across his eyes.
GASP.
Mirai sucked in a massive breath of air.
His eyes snapped open.
"Is this life after death?"
No, this is different. Mirai felt this wasn't heaven at all.
Nor.
He expected to see the white ceiling tiles of the hospital. Or Recovery Girl standing over his bed, shaking her head. And his two sidekicks.
FSHHHHH.
But instead he saw the dark night sky. He saw the branches of an old oak tree swaying in the wind.
He felt cold, damp grass under his bare hands.
"What's going on?!"
Mirai looked down at his chest. He wore a perfectly clean, tailored gray suit.
There was no hole.
There was no blood.
The agonizing pain was completely gone.
He pushed his glasses up his nose.
His sharp, analytical mind kicked into overdrive.
'This is not the hospital,' Mirai thought rapidly. 'I was fatally wounded. Recovery Girl could not heal the tissue damage. This is a cemetery. I should be dead.'
He looked up.
Two people stood in front of him.
A young woman in a casual jacket stood on the left.
A tall man in a pristine white suit with white hair and gold glasses stood on the right.
Mirai analyzed them instantly.
The woman looked nervous. She showed zero combat readiness.
The man in the white suit stood completely still.
He held no fighting stance. He kept no guard up. He just looked down at Mirai with a totally blank, unsettling calm.
Makoto stepped forward.
"Take a deep breath," Makoto said gently. "You are safe. You died a few months ago after the Shie Hassaikai raid."
Mirai stared at her.
'I really died,' Mirai processed the information. 'And now I am back again on top of my grave.'
"My name is [BLIP]," Makoto introduced herself. "And this is [BLIP]."
Mirai flinched hard.
He grabbed the side of his head with his right hand.
When the woman spoke her name, he didn't hear a single syllable.
A soft burst of audio static hit his ears. It sounded exactly like a censor beep on a live television broadcast.
'What was that?' Mirai thought, his eyes narrowing.
He looked directly at the white-haired man.
Mirai knew every major pro hero, vigilante, and villain in Japan.
He ran the most comprehensive intelligence agency in the country. He had never seen this man in his entire life.
He maintained a professional, guarded posture.
"I am fully aware of my injuries during the raid," Mirai said, keeping his voice perfectly steady. "I am also aware that modern medical quirks cannot reverse brain death or total organ failure."
He locked eyes with the man in the white suit.
Mirai stated firmly. "Who are you? And why did you resurrect me?"
"..." Kaito looked at him.
The air temperature around the grave dropped ten degrees.
Kaito stopped suppressing his presence. He let the raw, unfiltered weight of his reality-warping existence bleed directly into the physical world.
VWOOSH.
A massive, suffocating aura slammed down on the cemetery.
"..".
Mirai froze in place.
His breath caught in his throat. His knees locked tight.
'So strong!'
A drop of cold sweat rolled down his temple.
His survival instincts screamed at him to run.
He fought every villain alongside All Might years ago.
The pressure radiating off this white-haired man was exponentially worse.
It felt completely different.
Like the universe itself was pressing down on his shoulders.
'He is several times stronger than All Might.' Mirai thought, his heart pounding against his ribs.
"You can call me Hero X," Kaito said. His voice was deep.
It echoed slightly in the open night air.
Mirai forced himself to stay standing. He braced himself for a grand declaration.
He braced himself to hear a terrifying master plan to conquer the world or destroy hero society.
"..."
Kaito stared at him for three long seconds.
The tension in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife.
Then, Kaito blinked.
The suffocating aura vanished completely.
The temperature returned to normal. The crushing pressure evaporated into thin air.
Kaito shoved his hands into his suit pockets and slouched his shoulders slightly.
"I saved you because I wanted open a hero agency," Kaito said with a totally straight face. "And the government requires a license for that, veteran pro hero like you as my guarantor should skip a lot of tedious moments."
"..."
"..."
Mirai stared at him.
The cold sweat dried on his face. His genius-level intellect completely stalled out.
"I... what?" Mirai managed to say.
"A recommendation," Kaito repeated, waving his hand dismissively. "I don't have a hero license in this country. The Hero Public Safety Commission won't let me use a quirk in public nor I can create my own independent agency. You have a spotless record. So, I need you to become my guarantor."
"..."
"..."
Mirai looked at Makoto.
"Fufufu..."
Makoto covered her mouth with her hand. She was trying incredibly hard not to laugh at the ridiculous situation.
Mirai looked back at Kaito.
"Seriously?!" Mirai said, his voice is full of confusion "You defied the fundamental laws of life and death... and resurrected me because of that?"
Kaito laughed casually.
"Basically, yes," Kaito smiled.
"Welcome back to the land of the living, Sir Nighteye... Smile... You still have a lot of bright future ahead of you..."
"..." Sir Nighteye felt a sense of Deja vu.
...
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(9 Advanced Chapters)