Chapter 38

Today's patrol with Mirko started normally as I followed her from the air as usual while she remained on the ground, jumping from building to building. Our patrol remained peaceful until Mirko received a sudden radio call.

"To all available Hero units, please report. There was an explosion near the central station. We believe it was caused by illegal quirk use. The suspects are reported to be heading west…"

Mirko dropped onto the pavement before the dispatcher could finish speaking, her feet cracking the ground.

"That's only two districts from her," she said, ready to run toward the incident. 

"She should fast. I'll go ahead. You stay here and finish the patrol; I'll be back in a minute."

"Don't worry, I've got it," I said, as the black ghost lowered me onto the ground beside her.

Mirko didn't wait anymore once she heard my response; she immediately shot upward, jumping over a four-story building in a single leap. The wind pressure from her jump was enough to rattle a metal sign above and force me to cover my eyes. By the time I lowered my hands, she had already vanished.

Since I was alone, I decided to finish the patrol on foot to make sure I didn't miss anything. 5 minutes later, I walked into an alley between two office buildings to make sure no one was doing something shady inside.

Despite this place being the commercial district, this alley was filthy. Trash lingered everywhere, the air smelled like sewage and rotting food, and the paint on the brick wall had been peeled off long ago.

‘ I'm already regretting staying on the ground.’ I thought, disgusted by the alley.

Unfortunately for me, the deeper I walked into the alley corridor, the worse it got. 

Suddenly, a dark purple mist appeared behind me, and over twenty men stepped out from the portals as they started to block the exit behind me; more of them continued to appear on the fire escapes overhead, but also in front of me, completely sealing off every possible way for me to escape.

The alley was instantly filled with the noise of Quirks being activated. The skin of the man in front of me, who looked like he was leading the group, turned to stone. Beside him, another attacker's arms started swelling, with bone spikes appearing all over them. On the fire escapes above, I could see several of them preparing to throw various powers at me, like electricity, fire, and more bone spikes. I could even see the throat of one of them starting to glow.

‘ Damn, they seem to have come prepared; don't tell me they are all here just to deal with me.’ 

They didn't say anything, and they certainly didn't give me time to prepare, before they all ran towards me.

The stone-skinned guy in the front was the first to reach me and swing his fist towards my chest.

While dodging back, I caught a strange detail about my attackers. Other than obviously being members of the League of Villains, which was made evident by their method of transport or, in this case, teleportation from what I was seeing, it seemed like every single one of them wore small earplugs.

“Seriously, are they really thinking some earplugs will be enough to stop my paralysis from working on them?!”

I took a sharp breath and started screaming, but none of the league villains froze. 

They continued coming after me, with the stone-skinned guy in front of me barely flinching. He continued attacking, driving his fist downward toward my head.

‘ What the…’

Despite my confusion, I didn't pause or try to scream again. I quickly stepped back and sent my Black Ghost forward this time.

The black ghost reacted instantly. Catching the stone guy's fist mid-swing, snapping the hardened rock skin, before driving his foot straight into his ribs and sending him flying backward into the mob, taking three others down into a dumpster with him.

Unfortunately for me, all I gained from doing this was a volley of fireballs, lightning, stone spikes, and other projectiles flying straight at my face. My black ghost took care of most of them; I put my physical conditioning and training to work by avoiding the rest myself. 

Once I was out of danger, I sent the black ghost to deal with those on the fire exit. 

A villain came from behind me, and they swung a blade at me. I barely slipped under a sweeping bone blade before pivoting onto my back heel and driving a palm strike into the League villains' exposed jaws.

Unfortunately for me I was forced to recall the black ghost before he couldn't deal with all the enemy above since another volley of attack toward me.

The League villains' attacks kept coming after me as I worked in tandem with the Black Ghost to make sure I stayed alive.

I parried a strike and let the ghost crush the attacker's shoulder from behind. I kept moving each time I dealt with one of them, making sure not to stay in place and leave an opening to rain down attacks on me again. 

‘ Bastards, if they think they can beat me just because I can't paralyze them, they're in for a shocking surprise. Just wait, Shigaraki, the next time we meet I'll make sure to take both of your nuts.’ I thought, furious at the ambush.

Unfortunately, that was when my luck ran out. While I was ducking under another stream of various attacks and directing the ghost to shatter someone's leg before sending him flying, a patch of purple mist opened silently in my blind spot.

I never saw him coming. A long, jagged katana flashed out of the mist, slicing through my upper arm before I could even understand what was happening.

I hissed at the pain, before I immediately tried to turn around to deal with the new opponent, who turned out to be Stain. Before I could do anything, unfortunately, he pulled the bloody blade across his tongue.

My body immediately started feeling heavy; it was like ice slammed through my nervous system.

I couldn't move anymore, since my body was locked in place. I fell to my knee, and I hit the damp ground sideways like a sack of cement.

My Black Ghost was unable to help me since it was busy protecting me from the continuous villain attack. It swept its massive, clawed arms to tear through two villains who tried to rush my fallen body; 

Unfortunately for me, since I was still conscious, it kept fiercely defending me while keeping itself between the villains' mob and me.

‘ Damn, what kind of joke is this, to think one day I'll be the one to fall for someone else's paralysis ability.’ I thought while trying to free myself with a move.

‘ What kind of bullshit is this? There's no way I'm unable to free myself while Midoriya's done it multiple times.’

Despite Stain being unable to see the black ghost, he still carefully stepped around the area the black ghost was guarding; he just made sure to avoid going towards the mob of villains who were still throwing attacks at me, his bloodshot eyes glaring down at me through his mask. Once he was near me, he pointed one of his blades toward my face.

"Look at you, Arata Seiji. You parade around in your costume under a glory-hound like Mirko, who only knows how to chase fame and corporate approval. You are nothing but a child infected by this rotten society." Stain started rambling, his voice full of self-righteousness and indignation. 

‘ Move, damn it, just give me one finger.’ I didn't pay any attention to Stain since I was straining myself against the effect of his Quirk. All I could do was glare at him in fury.

"You have the power to do something meaningful, yet you waste it acting like a puppet for the system," Stain growled, while leaning closer. 

"I won't accept this. If you are to ever stand as a true hero, you need to be taught a lesson about the weight of conviction and what happens when you refuse to fulfill what you are meant to do."

He dragged the tip of his blades across my face, slicing a deep line into my skin from one end to the other. 

"You don't have to worry, I won't kill you. But let this scar be a reminder of your duty. You…"

*BANG.*

A gunshot shattered Stain's lecture, interrupting him mid-sentence. The bullet punched through my ribs, tearing through my lung, leaving me gasping on the ground. Even though I was wearing body armor, the bullet still passed through my body without any resistance.

A League mercenary stepped out from the edge of the warp mist, holding a pistol, his earpiece buzzing with Shigaraki's irritated voice. 

"Shigaraki said to cut the pointless speech." He said while turning towards Stain.

Before Stain could swing his sword at the goon in rage, the mercenary raised the barrel, aimed straight down at me, and pulled the trigger once again.

This time the bullet punched straight through my head. I didn't feel anything before plunging into darkness. 

‘ Damn it, to believe this is how I die, executed by some random nameless villain while getting lectured by a lunatic.’

The darkness lasted only a couple of seconds. Before I opened my eyes once again.

The surge of dark matter that followed my resurrection wasn't a small trickle like usual; it was so massive that multiple black ghosts started appearing around me at the same time.

Over twenty Black Ghosts exploded out of my body at once. The concentration of dark matter made them visible to everyone present. Their presence sent panic rippling through the mob of villains.

Without my conscious mind to direct them, the ghosts went wild. They didn't hold back; they tore through everything in their line of sight inside the alley. They shattered stone armor, snapped bone, and ripped villains like ragdolls.

Stain tried to fight one of them. His katana flashed, slicing one ghost's torso, but three more appeared around him. They slammed him into the wall, and a sweep of a claw later, they severed his left arm at the shoulder.

An agonizing scream tore from Stain's throat. As he bled profusely on the pavement, a swirl of purple warp mist opened behind him, dragging his mangled body into the shadows as he cursed Shigaraki's betrayal.

The surviving villains tried to escape into the portal but none of them was able to make it, at the end all that was left behind was pulverized concrete, crushed steel dumpsters, a ruined alleyways, and a heap of dismembered corpses.

I breathed violently as my heart started beating normally again. I sat up with a sharp gasp, sucking in the foul smell of the alley, now mixed with the stink of blood.

The bullet holes in my head and chest, and the cut Stain had carved onto my face, started slowly knitting themselves.

Just as I was starting to relax, I heard heavy footsteps coming from the entrance of the alley as Mirko ran at full speed, her eyes wide with desperation.

Once she saw me, she skidded to a halt, her breath catching in her throat as she took in the scene: crushed walls, blood-soaked ground, with the last trails of dark matter dissipating as the black ghosts dissolved into the air. With me sitting in the center of all this mess.

My jacket was torn open and stained with fresh blood, and right before her eyes, the remnant of the cut on my face finally closed.

Her ears flattened against her head as her face turned pale. She started to breathe heavily, 

" Arata… What... what did they do to you?" 

She finally asked, her voice tight with guilt

Before I could even think about making an excuse to try to explain the situation, a wave of heat filled the alley. As Endeavor stepped through the entrance of the alley, his flames casting shadows across the ruined ground.

Before he could say anything, he stopped dead in his tracks as his eyes scanned the scattered limbs and corpses on the ground before landing on my blood-soaked clothes but otherwise completely unharmed body. 

"What the hell happened in here?" he growled, his tone rising with confusion and anger.