After watching the rather rough-looking boy walk away, Naomasa turned his gaze back to the number one hero.
“So… I heard what you said over the comms about the bodies.” The man paused on the last word, giving his friend a chance to speak.
The young detective knew All Might well, both from friendly interactions and from the professionalism inherent in the number one hero.
There was no way he had “accidentally” killed a crowd of villains all at once.
“Yeah,” the hero nodded grimly, his gaze flicking toward the police trailer.
Naomasa didn’t miss it.
“When I went down into that corridor, the kid was standing in the middle of the bodies. Opposite him were two villains. One of them, I’ll swear, was just as afraid of that child as he was of me.”
“…Are you saying that…?”
“I’m not saying anything yet,” the hero shook his head.
“I’ve just got my muscles. I’m no forensic expert, so…” All Might spread his hands, showing his helplessness in the matter.
Naomasa was about to say something when, one after another, orderlies wheeled three gurneys out of the dark passage.
Then, picking up speed, they rushed them toward the ambulances.
“…You were wrong about the number of critically injured?”
“…I don’t think so.”
At that moment, another police figure appeared from the passage.
Looking around, he quickly walked toward All Might and Naomasa.
“Tsukauchi-san, during the search of the underground facilities, we found a villain known as Chameleon in critical condition,” the officer reported.
“‘Critical condition’? Hanzo, give me the details.”
“Yes sir!” the senior inspector snapped to attention.
“According to the preliminary examination by the head paramedic, Chameleon had extensive damage to his central nervous system, similar to a severe electric shock. However, according to the paramedic, there are no signs of burns on his body or any of the secondary indicators that usually accompany such injuries. Also, the head paramedic suspects the possibility of a massive stroke.”
“…Thank you, Hanzo. You can go.”
“Yes sir!” the officer saluted and left.
“What do you think?” Naomasa turned to All Might.
“Hmm… From what I saw, I’d guess the kid’s Quirk is something like a shield with a high degree of customization,” the hero recalled the situation with the strange distortion of sunlight.
“…Chameleon’s injuries don’t fit.”
“Maybe he has multiple Quirks?” the detective stroked his chin.
“That seems very unlikely, but it might explain why the villains needed the kid in the first place… Alright.” Naomasa clapped his hands.
“We can guess forever. I’ll go take a look myself.” He adjusted his hat and headed toward the entrance to the underground complex.
“Can you keep an eye on things here?” He nodded toward the trailer.
“Just in case.”
“Of course.”
***
Samuel thoughtfully ate his simple breakfast of donuts and cocoa.
Overcoming his still-nagging paranoia and accepting food from someone else’s hands was surprisingly difficult.
He understood logically that he was safe and no one was trying to poison him.
But his subconscious was very wary of everything around him.
Still, this quirk of his own mind didn’t bother him much.
Now, in a relatively calm (not to be confused with “safe”) environment, he had a moment to catch his breath and think about his situation.
On the minus side, he had no idea what was happening.
How had he been thrown into another world?
Why?
Why him?
From the data he had, Samuel could only draw one conclusion, and he didn’t like it.
The self-proclaimed, arrogant goddess named Kalli was simply bored.
For her, it seemed, such a trick cost nothing.
Feeling like a lab mouse being laughed at by a higher being was unpleasant, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Bad luck happens.
Though the scale of his bad luck caused a slight metaphorical burning sensation in his rear end.
On the plus side, he understood the language the natives spoke, and he had an imbalanced power-up.
The divine brat hadn’t skimped on that much, at least.
And even then, Samuel didn’t understand everything people around him said, and he could barely read at all.
He concluded that he wasn’t guided by a divine built-in translator given to him upon transfer to another world, but by the knowledge of the child whose body he had taken.
And since no one had really taught the kid much, he shouldn’t expect decent literacy in the rather complex Japanese language.
As for his vector control ability, it was beyond praise.
Absolute cheat.
Accelerator’s vector manipulation from the world of Index and Railgun was a damn cheat, especially in the reality of My Hero Academia.
At this point, Samuel had barely unlocked twenty percent of his ability’s potential, but he already felt like a cyborg with a minigun going to war against penguins.
And it weighed on him.
“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” That applies to absolute strength, too.
He immediately remembered the Spider-Man quote about power and responsibility.
But Samuel, frankly speaking, wasn’t the most worthy person.
With this sudden omnipotence weighing on him, he had every chance of losing his mind.
However, his subconscious, driven by his desire to remain himself, found an outlet in that same paranoia.
Samuel’s subconscious took it as an axiom that his vector shield was not invulnerable until proven otherwise.
And the only thing that could prove the axiom was the fact that the shield could block any attack from any random Quirk user, or from any random combination of them.
In other words, until every single person with a Quirk on the planet had hit his vector shield with their most sophisticated attack and had it deflected, his subconscious would fervently believe in the shield’s inadequacy and constantly strive to improve it.
Consequently, until absolute defense was achieved, it was too early to talk about absolute power.
Even now, eating a chocolate cream donut, Samuel continued to think about ways to block the penetration of poisons into his body with his vector shield.
He also thought about how it would be a good idea to get a scuba tank somewhere and carry it with him at all times.
He remembered from some internet speculation in his past world that Accelerator could survive even a nuclear strike.
But he could easily die because all the oxygen outside his vector shield would simply burn up.
It would also be a good idea, if possible, to focus on aerodynamics and physics in general, so he could quickly and painlessly get out of the damage zone of anything.
In general, his thoughts were mostly paranoid, but not to the point of insanity.
At least, Samuel believed that.
“Finished eating?” the girl sitting next to him asked with a smile when the boy finished his sweet pastries.
“I know, not the healthiest or most filling food, but it’s just for now.”
“As you probably heard, my name is Yuriko. What’s yours?” the girl wasn’t at all upset by the silence.
At this point, the guy decided to lower the wall of distrust a little and say at least something, before everyone around became convinced he was mute.
“…I don’t remember.” (How the previous owner of this body was named, he added mentally, remembering that Naomasa was nearby and had a Quirk that could supposedly detect lies.)
Yuriko blinked in surprise.
She was happy that the child had made contact, but as soon as the meaning of the answer reached her, the girl frowned.
“Where are your parents?”
“…I don’t know.” (Where the previous owner of this body’s parents were.)
After this answer, Yuriko became even gloomier.
With three eyes, it looked strange, but still quite cute.
She was also at a loss, not knowing what else she could ask the boy sitting in front of her without causing him pain.
‘In this situation, a child needs a good psychologist, not me,’ the girl thought sadly, looking at Samuel with pity.
“Hmm…” Yuriko scanned the boy with her eyes, causing him to tense up slightly, not knowing what to expect.
“I’ve got it!” she slapped her fist into her palm.
A sharp, unexpected movement.
It was stupid.
It was unclear what played a bigger role in this situation.
How deeply Samuel had gotten into character, or his still not fully calmed paranoia.
But the guy reacted very… sharply.
The moment he heard the sound of her fist hitting her palm, his vector shield instantly switched to an almost impenetrable fortress mode.
It immediately cleared the internal space of excess and blocked access to almost all external vectors except light.
And that was only so he could still see what was happening.
The result was predictable.
The chair he was sitting on was instantly pressed into the floor of the trailer, twisting and breaking both.
The table he had been sitting at was ripped from its roots and slammed into the wall.
The noise was incredible.
“What happened?” All Might burst into the trailer instantly, surveying the scene.
The boy, pressed against the wall opposite Yuriko, warily examined the people standing in front of him.
The air around him vibrated slightly, not letting the dust that had risen under the vector shield.
The girl herself, who had luckily escaped injury in the commotion, stood frozen in the same pose.
Her fist was still on her open palm.
All three of her eyes were wide with horror.
“…This is my fault,” Yuriko whispered, slowly coming to her senses.
She raised her hands in a surrendering gesture as slowly as she could.
“I won’t hurt you.”
The number one hero, looking around in confusion, understood in general terms what had happened after her words.
He mentally cursed, which was unlike him.
As for Samuel himself, he only came to his senses when the table was already flying into the wall and the chair, being crushed into a pancake, was punching through the floor of the police vehicle.
Though he was quite surprised by his own reaction to what had happened, he decided to play out the scene.
He left the deep self-analysis for later.