Author's Note:
Hey everyone! Sorry for the delay, but seriously—we literally went from 70k views to almost 120k in a single day, like, what the actual hell?! I lowkey panicked, haha. Anyway, I'll be posting the next two chapters tomorrow since I'm still polishing them up. If you want me to drop an extra 3 chapters real quick, let's hit 300 power stones and maybe we'll see a miracle happen, yeah? Without further ado...
Let's get into it:
The heat in the hallway was unbearable. Endeavor wouldn't take his eyes off me, panting slightly, but with a posture that screamed authority. To him, I was a puzzle that didn't quite fit.
"Flames and mind control..." he rasped, his voice hoarse from the exertion. "Two quirks. I don't know where you came from, but you're not getting out of here."
He wasn't thinking about ancient monsters or otherworldly entities. To the Number 2 Hero, I was just a young villain—maybe someone's experiment—who somehow possessed two powerful abilities. He didn't suspect a thing, which suited me perfectly.
But Endeavor's suspicions were the least of my problems. My body was paying the price. I felt a horrific pressure in my chest; my cellular tissue was at the absolute limit of what it could endure. Every movement took twice the effort, and he noticed.
Endeavor propelled himself forward with a blast from his feet, appearing in front of me faster than my eyes could track. He threw a flame-charged right hook that I couldn't dodge.
His fist connected squarely with my jaw. I felt my teeth slam together, and a metallic taste immediately flooded my mouth. Spit and blood flew as my back crashed violently into a concrete wall.
"Agh... damn it..." I muttered, spitting onto the ground.
It hurt. It hurt in a way I hadn't felt in a long time. It was a blunt, real pain—the kind that makes your bones vibrate. I tried to stand, but my legs gave out. Endeavor gave me no breathing room, driving a knee into my ribs that knocked the wind right out of me. I was at a clear disadvantage. My magical strength was immense, but in this little girl's body, trading blows with the strongest guy in Japan was a death sentence.
He grabbed me by the collar, lifting me off the ground. His face was smeared with soot, his expression one of pure determination.
"Game over, kid. You're coming to HQ to talk."
He had me right where he wanted me. My body was on the verge of collapsing; I felt like if I tried to channel any more power, my skin would literally split open. But I still had one trick left. We were so close I could feel the scorching heat radiating from his beard.
"No... not today," I whispered, forcing a bloody grin.
In a final effort, I moved my hand with what little speed I had left. I didn't strike him. Instead, my fingers clawed into his hair, ripping a clump straight from the roots. At the same moment, I triggered a small blast of air between us using the last of my matter-control.
The explosion forced us apart. He stumbled back in surprise, clapping a hand to his temple where his hair was now missing. I seized those few seconds of confusion while he tried to figure out why I had stolen his hair instead of trying to kill him.
I ran as best as I could toward the nearest restrooms, leaving a trail of blood on the floor. Endeavor was right behind me, shouting orders to apprehend me. Bursting inside, I used the absolute last of my strength to smash through the floor of one of the stalls, blowing a hole straight down into the main water pipes.
I shoved the clump of hair into my mouth, swallowing it whole as I threw myself into the void. A shockwave of electricity surged down my spine; the copy quirk was registering the DNA of his flames. My vision blurred for a second; my body couldn't take any more.
I fell heavily into the stagnant water of the sewers. The stench was foul, and the dampness chilled my broken bones to the core, but the sound of Endeavor's heavy footsteps remained up there, on the surface restroom floor.
"See ya, Number Two..." I wheezed, my voice cracking as I dragged myself through the sewer sludge.
I needed a place to hide, and above all, I needed to find a way to fix this vessel before it completely disintegrated.
The heat of the UA hallway was left behind, but the damage was done. I crawled through the sewer mud, feeling the stagnant water seep into my wounds. It wasn't a glorious or magical escape; it was pure survival. I could feel my consciousness fading, so I stopped trying to maintain Eri's physical form. My body dissolved into a thick, greenish mist that crept through the pipes like a toxic gas. I moved on instinct, following the mental map King had drawn out for me, until I finally seeped out of a grate in a forgotten alleyway.
When the mist solidified again, I hit the cold pavement face-first. I hacked up a mixture of blood and those damn strands of Endeavor's hair that were still caught between my teeth. Barely managing to stand, I stumbled toward the apartment I used as a safehouse, swaying like a drunkard.
The moment I locked the door behind me, I collapsed against the wall. The strain of keeping up the mask vanished. The girl's skin withered away like burnt paper, revealing my true form: the Lich's skull, with its hollow sockets and a green fire that was now barely a flickering spark due to exhaustion.
"Agh... cough..." I began to cough, staring down at my skeletal hands. "Looks like I bit off more than I could chew."
I leaned back against the wall, absorbing the coldness of the concrete. Looking at Endeavor's hair on the floor, I made a weak gesture to tear open a dimensional rift. I tossed the clump inside, right next to the piece of bone I had harvested earlier. Inside the rift, I saw the rats I had left days ago; they were gnawing on the bone, enchanting it with their agony and my magic. "I have big plans for that piece of bone..." I murmured before sealing the rift.
I caught a glimpse of myself in a cracked mirror in the living room and couldn't help it. I was wearing casual clothes to blend in at the festival—an oversized hoodie and dark pants—but now they were scorched and caked in mud. Seeing a small, female frame in streetwear, topped by a flaming skull, was an absolute nightmare image.
"Huh... come to think of it, I could totally pull off Ghost Rider, haha," I let out a dry, raspy chuckle. The mental image of a spirit of vengeance rocking sneakers and a hoodie gave me a momentary chuckle that flared the pain in my newly knitting ribs.
But I couldn't pass out. I had two villains under my mind control, and if I went to sleep, they'd break free. I crossed my legs on the floor in a meditative stance, forcing Overhaul's quirk to stabilize my body. I felt flesh and bone gradually regenerating across my face, cloaking the skull beneath Eri's skin once more.
He still has the upper hand, I admitted to myself. Endeavor had literally beaten the spit out of me. The Lich from the original series just attacked blindly, relying on raw power, but that wasn't going to cut it here. I needed real combat experience.
UA will claim they've beefed up security, when they haven't even updated it in years. Incompetent fools... I thought with disgust. I remembered I still had plenty of cash left over from my days as a hero. I'd use those funds to bankroll a tutor—someone from the underbelly who could teach me how to actually fight. Someone who wouldn't ask questions about why a little girl wanted to learn how to kill with her bare hands.
I closed my eyes, letting the distant hum of the city filter through the cracked window as my body finished fusing the muscles in my back. With a lazy gesture, I flicked on the old TV just to confirm the chaos I had sown.
On the screen, a "Breaking News" graphic flashed a stark, alarming red, interrupting the regular broadcast.
BREAKING NEWS: TERROR AT UA
The anchor, pale-faced and with a visibly trembling voice, spoke in front of an aerial shot of the sports stadium, where black smoke was still billowing from one of the side corridors following the clash with Endeavor.
Anchor: "What was supposed to be a celebration of youth and hard work has turned into the worst nightmare in the history of UA Academy. Official sources have just confirmed that following an unprecedented security breach in Section B, two students have been kidnapped in the middle of the event."
The screen split to show the two student profiles I myself had processed hours earlier.
Anchor: "The students have been identified as Neito Monoma from Class 1-B, and Momo Yaoyorozu from Class 1-A. The latter is the heiress to the prominent Yaoyorozu family, whose prestige and financial influence are pillars of our society. The family has already issued a statement demanding immediate answers from an institution that promised their children would be in the safest place in the country. The public is left wondering: if UA can't protect the elite, who is safe?"
The footage cut to an impromptu press conference outside the academy gates. Camera flashes were incessant, blinding a group of pro heroes who hung their heads under the barrage of reporters' questions.
Right in the center of the shot was Nezu. The principal, who always boasted an apex intellect and a countermeasure for every contingency, lacked his usual confident smirk. His ears were drooped, and his bead-like eyes stared blankly into space, drowned out by a sea of microphones screaming questions about negligence and a potential link to the incidents in Deika City.
For a second, the camera zoomed in on him. There was no trace of the calculating genius left. His expression was that of a man who had just realized he'd been playing chess against a ghost—and had lost absolutely everything. It was the face of a man who knew, deep down in his soul, that he had royally screwed up.
I turned off the TV with an internal smile, feeling the mental grip on my pawns holding firm.
"Poor little rat..." I muttered, feeling Momo's Creation quirk humming beneath my freshly restored skin. "He doesn't even know his students aren't locked away in some secret base. They are a part of my own biological makeup now."
I stood up, testing the flexibility of my fingers. Publicly humiliating Nezu was a delightful dessert, but the main course was still my training. The world was distracted looking for two missing kids; it was the perfect time to vanish into the criminal underworld and find someone to teach me how to fight as dirty as this world deserves.
The bar's atmosphere was foul, thick with cheap cigarette smoke and the metallic tang of desperation. My expression said it all: What the hell am I even doing here? I was surrounded by the dregs of the underworld—thugs who thought they were hot shit just because their quirk let them stretch their fingers or spit acid. I could have turned this joint into a pyre of green flame in less than a second, but the heat it would bring from the cops and heroes wasn't worth the hassle. Not yet.
I glanced out of the corner of my eye at the bartender—a guy who clearly knew more than he let on—as he hung up the phone. He gave me a forced smile, the kind you give when you know the customer in front of you could rip out your spine if their coffee is cold. I had already given him the cash—a sum he probably wouldn't see in ten years of honest work—so I expected Giran, or whoever was on the other end of that line, to deliver. If he didn't bring someone good, this bar was going to need a new owner and an exorcist.
To kill time, I leaned back against the table and closed my eyes, diving into Momo's memories. Her chemical knowledge was... exhaustive. The Lich knew how to destroy, sure, but understanding atomic structures to synthesize lipids and convert them into complex matter was a massive headache. I reviewed her molecular composition formulas; it struck me as pathetic that she used a quirk like this to make shields and circus cannons.
When I master this, I'm going to manufacture twenty nuclear warheads just to watch them glow, I thought with silent cruelty. Now that's a power upgrade.
The hours dragged on. To keep from dying of boredom, I ended up playing checkers with a two-bit villain who possessed a mind-reading quirk. The poor bastard thought he had the game in the bag. What he didn't know was that he was trying to read the mind of a millennial entity that had watched empires fall.
I put my thoughts on a loop of static noise, visions of ancient death, and Momo's mathematical formulas mashed up with children's nursery rhymes. It was glorious watching his face go from smug confidence to sheer terror, and then to absolute confusion. He couldn't cheat because my mind was a labyrinth of mental garbage. I beat him five times in a row. I let him win one out of pity, just to see if he'd stop sweating like a pig.
I stared down at the checkerboard, ignoring the mind-reader who was clutching his temples looking like he wanted to throw up. The guy's brain was fried. Just as I was about to move my last piece to humiliate him again, I felt someone slide onto the stool next to mine without making a sound.
There was no dramatic entrance, and the background music didn't stop. A woman had just appeared out of nowhere. She wore a worn-out cap and a dark jacket that helped her melt into the shadows of the bar. She had a tired, bored look—the kind belonging to people who have seen it all on the streets and can no longer be surprised. She glanced at the board while lighting a cigarette.
"Red wins?" she asked, her voice raspy and flat, drawing out her words with utter indifference.
I didn't even turn to face her. I just kept tapping my finger against the table.
"Red always wins if you know who's moving the pieces," I replied carelessly.
She exhaled a plume of smoke and let out a short, almost imperceptible chuckle, resting her elbows on the counter. The bartender didn't even bother asking what she wanted; he just took a step back, clearly uncomfortable with her presence. She scanned me up and down, lingering for a second on my kid-sized hands.
"Giran told me some punk with too much cash was looking for a tutor," she said, removing the cigarette from her mouth with two fingers. "But he forgot to mention you were a pint-sized brat. Name's Sora."
"I don't care what your name is as long as you can do what Giran promised," I snapped, finally sliding the wooden piece forward and clinching the game. The psychic villain stood up and practically bolted out of the room out of sheer fright. "I need technique. I don't want to just crush things; I want to know exactly where to place the blade so they don't get back up."
Sora observed me in silence for a few seconds. She didn't look impressed, but there was something dangerous in the way she sized me up; she analyzed you like someone calculating the distance before throwing a punch.
"You talk awfully tough for someone so short," she remarked, taking another drag from her cigarette. "Teaching is a pain in the ass, especially if I have to make sure you don't break. If you really want to learn how to fight dirty, you're going to have to keep up. I don't get paid to be patient, kid. If you get in my way or freeze up, I'm leaving you behind."
I turned slightly and looked her dead in the eye. For a split second, I let the green fire of my sockets flare just a fraction behind Eri's pupils—just enough for her to feel the cold breath of death brush against the back of her neck.
"If you teach me well, money will be the least of your concerns. And I'll give you the chance to permanently remove anyone getting in your way in the underworld. I have resources to spare," I whispered.
Sora didn't jump, but her eyes narrowed, and she let her cigarette ash fall onto the bar counter. A small, lopsided smirk appeared on her face—a purely street-hardened expression.
"Well, look at that... the brat's got teeth," she murmured, tossing the butt to the floor and crushing it under her heel. "Guess this won't be so boring after all. Let's move. I know a covered alley around the corner where nobody comes snooping."
I stood up, adjusting my casual hoodie. Finally, some real progress.
"Lead the way," I told her. "And you'd better be as fast as they say."
End of Chapter 11.