Outside the window, the scenery rushed past, blurring into gray streaks of urban sprawl.
I sighed softly and rested my head against the cool glass.
The chill seeping from the windowpane into my skin seemed to be the only thing keeping my consciousness from slipping away completely.
Beside me, Ida Tenya sat with a posture so rigid it looked painful.
His hands rested on his knees, eyes fixed straight ahead as if facing a life-or-death exam rather than sitting on a high-speed train bound for Hosu City.
And somehow, through some bizarre force of what people called “youthful friendship,” we had ended up sitting next to each other, pouring out nearly every single thing in this damned world.
From family matters and the stupid messes of teenage life to the most secret, ridiculous emotions.
We laid everything bare.
Not a single filter remained.
Honestly, Tenya wasn’t as unbearable as the first impression I had pinned on him during the U.A.
entrance exam.
How should I put it… He was rigid.
Excessively rule-abiding.
Sometimes impulsively stupid.
His entire being was constructed from bureaucratic systems and the constantly grinding gears of “justice.”
But if you dug a little deeper and peeled away that model class-representative shell, he was actually a rather decent guy.
Even friendly, in his own way.
A textbook “rich young master” temperament.
It made perfect sense.
The Ida family.
Three generations of heroes.
That kind of background and upbringing was bound to produce someone like this—someone who blindly believed in light, who was convinced the world ran on clear black-and-white rules.
“About the entrance exam…” Tenya suddenly spoke, cutting through my thoughts.
He turned to me, eyes completely serious.
“I owe you an apology, Onodera-kun.
Back then I was too arrogant and treated both you and Midoriya-kun poorly.”
I blinked and slowly turned to look at him.
The corner of my mouth curled into a faint smile that could have been either mockery or agreement.
“Don’t worry about it.” I tossed the words back casually.
“I have to admit I was far worse than you that day.
The level of bastardry I reached… I’m afraid you could chase it your whole life and still never catch up, Class Rep.”
Tenya looked a little flustered by how I belittled myself, but then he just chuckled softly and pushed up his glasses.
“Anyway… I’m glad we can talk this openly.”
I didn’t reply.
Just hummed quietly in my throat and closed my eyes.
You’re lying, Ryuga.
A voice echoed inside my head.
You’re manipulating him.
You’re playing the understanding friend while knowing exactly what he’s hiding, and you’re using it.
Honestly… I wasn’t sure if my head was still okay.
I was wearing too many roles.
The role of the eccentric student.
The role of a friend.
The role of someone who knew the future.
The role of a kidnapper.
And the role of a manipulator.
There were so many overlapping masks that sometimes I wondered.
If I peeled them all away… what would be left underneath?
Would it still be Onodera Ryuga?
Or just an empty lump of flesh waiting to rot?
The announcement system chimed with a soft female voice informing us we had arrived at Hosu Station.
We stepped off the train.
The air of Hosu hit my nose, carrying the scent of urban dust and something indescribably oppressive.
Manual, the local hero of Hosu, was already waiting for us on the platform.
He greeted us with a warm, radiant smile.
His manner, his presence… exactly as I remembered from the original story.
Dedicated.
Kind.
Always trying to build the image of a perfect modern hero, even if he was sometimes a little clumsy and prone to mistakes.
He stepped forward and shook our hands.
When those warm eyes landed on me, I caught a flicker of surprise in his pupils.
Probably my dull, gloomy appearance and the strange choker around my neck didn’t match the “budding hero” image he had imagined.
“Onodera Ryuga and Ida Tenya, correct?” Manual said, his voice smooth and welcoming.
“Welcome to this area.
I’ll be your direct supervisor for this internship.”
“It’s an honor to meet you!” Tenya immediately bowed at a perfect ninety degrees, voice clear and formal.
I only nodded slightly.
“Looking forward to your guidance.”
“We’ll start with a quick tour so you can get familiar with the jurisdiction,” Manual smiled.
“After that, I’ll go over the work in detail.”
We nodded and followed behind him.
Along the way, Manual continuously pointed out key locations: the nearest police station, Hosu General Hospital, areas where minor scuffles frequently occurred.
He patiently explained that Hosu wasn’t a hotspot for major villains.
His work here was mainly community support and handling everyday incidents.
Those jobs might be undervalued and didn’t bring flashy fame, but they formed the living foundation of hero society.
Tenya absorbed every drop of information like a dried-out sponge.
He scribbled notes into a small notebook like a true bookworm.
And me?
I tried to look like I was listening, occasionally nodding along.
But in reality, my mind was drifting in another dimension.
My thoughts flew straight to the meeting with Toga Himiko.
A restless, impatient feeling kept buzzing and screaming inside my chest.
My heart was beating faster than normal.
Every few minutes I had to dig my nails hard into my own arm to force myself to keep a calm expression.
Calm down.
Don’t show any openings.
I looked at Manual talking endlessly.
At his carefree smile.
At Tenya’s serious face.
They didn’t know.
They had absolutely no idea that this peaceful city was about to turn into a cauldron of fire.
They didn’t know Stain was lurking somewhere in the dark alleys outside.
They didn’t know the Nomu would pour chaos down onto these streets.
The feeling of knowing everything in advance… was cruel and suffocating to the extreme.
I was like a spectator tied tightly to a seat, forced to watch a horror movie while unable to scream warnings at the actors foolishly walking toward their deaths.
Responsibility?
Pressure?
Salvation?
No.
It was pure torture.
A slow mental torment that crushed my mind a little more every day.
…
Finally, after a long day of walking, introductions, meals, and a mountain of damned social formalities, Manual led us to the Hosu city office.
“You two can stay here for convenience during the internship,” Manual offered, pointing to a fairly neat empty room with a double bed and prepared daily necessities.
Tenya, as expected, immediately agreed with shining eyes.
He considered it an honor.
Me?
I politely declined.
“Thank you for the kind offer, but I’ve already booked a room in advance.”
They tried to persuade me a little more.
Tenya said staying together would make academic discussions easier.
Manual said canceling the reservation was fine.
But canceling plans at the last minute with someone like Toga… was like shooting yourself in the foot.
Extremely risky and stupid.
Even though the room really did look like a dream, I used the excuse that the deposit was non-refundable and promised to be at the office first thing the next morning.
But what was the truth?
The truth was I hadn’t booked any fucking room at all.
Toga was the one who had done it.
And that girl, with some twisted logic of her own, had deliberately chosen a location as physically far as possible from Manual’s office and the main hero patrol routes.
…
Instead of a proper hotel with clean curtains and free breakfast, the address Toga sent via message led me straight toward the edge of the city.
The scenery around me changed rapidly.
The brilliant neon lights of the central district gradually disappeared, replaced by flickering streetlamps that blinked on and off.
The noisy sound of car horns was replaced by an eerie silence.
In front of me stood a dilapidated, moldy apartment complex.
Peeling paint on the walls looked like wounds that would never heal.
Looking at this desolation, I would bet it hadn’t seen a maintenance worker in at least a decade.
I slowly climbed the external iron fire-escape stairs.
Creak… Creak…
Every step I took on the rusted metal produced a sharp sound.
The strange silence of this area wrapped tightly around me, heavy and stifling like a water-soaked blanket.
No car sounds.
No human conversation.
Only the echo of my own footsteps ringing out like gunshots in the dead space.
My head began to pound like a hammer.
Flashes of images raced through my brain.
Bakugo’s desperate eyes.
Izuku’s awkwardness.
My own fake smile.
What the hell are you doing here, Ryuga?
You’re a U.A.
student, aren’t you?
Why are you crawling into this rat hole?
I took a deep breath and forced that damned voice down.
I found the room number matching the message.
Placing my hand on the rusted, rough doorknob, I turned it hard.
Click.
The door wasn’t locked.
I pushed it open and stepped inside.
Darkness immediately swallowed me.
Out of instinct, I fumbled along the wall and pressed the light switch.
Click.
A dry sound.
The bulb was burned out.
No light came on.
The only light source in the entire room… was the pale, sickly orange glow from a single streetlamp outside, filtering through the cracks of a dust-covered window.
That light cast long, distorted, and grotesque shadows across the floor.
It revealed a space simplified to the extreme of poverty.
A mattress dumped carelessly on the creaking wooden floor.
A peeling wooden table.
And that was it.
No television.
No refrigerator.
Not a single human convenience.
And the smell… Oh god, the smell.
It was thick.
Suffocating.
The heavy stench of mold mixed with the stagnant air of a place abandoned for lifetimes.
That smell slammed straight into my throat, clawing at my esophagus and making me grimace with nausea.
“You’re late, Ryuga-kun.”
A voice suddenly tore through the quiet, making my spine go cold and my entire body jolt.
Himiko, now back in her true form, was sitting cross-legged on that tattered mattress.
Her body was almost swallowed by the darkness, leaving only a hazy silhouette reverse-lit by the glaring streetlamp behind her.
Even though I couldn’t clearly see her face, I could feel her arms crossed over her chest.
And those eyes… Those pale golden eyes glowed strangely in the dark, sharp and locked onto me like a predator that had just spotted fresh meat.
“Fuck…” I muttered a quiet curse and tossed my bag onto the warped floorboards.
“Couldn’t you pick a hole that at least had proper electricity and water, Toga?”
She tilted her head.
Even in the darkness I could picture the familiar pout on her face.
“This place can’t be monitored.” She answered with a mix of pride and coquettishness.
“Cheap.
No security cameras.
No nosy neighbors.
I thought you’d like it… Away from that fake, noisy hero world.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it again.
Arguing with her right now was the most pointless thing in the world.
I exhaled a heavy sigh and rubbed my left eye that was twitching continuously.
The exhaustion… It wasn’t just physical.
It was the complete draining of my soul down to the last drop.
For so many days I had been forcing myself to play the mastermind, manipulating the minds of so-called Heroes, dealing with the nasty remnants of Bakugo’s collapse, and carrying the suffocating weight of this damned timeline.
That weight had finally started to break my spine.
I felt myself drowning.
Sinking into an ocean of lies and violence that I myself had created.
My legs gave out.
I staggered toward the mattress and dropped my body down beside her.
The cheap, rusted springs screamed pitifully under my weight.
I lay on my back, eyes wide open staring at the cracked ceiling.
The moment my back touched the mattress, every defensive wall I had carefully built completely shattered into fragments.
The insults, the group beatings and ostracism from my previous life.
The horrific reality of the criminal whose head was crushed and the Nomu burned to ash.
The absolute isolation of carrying the secret of this world’s future… All of it crashed down at once and crushed me.
I was too tired.
Fucking hell, I was truly too tired.
In this moment, I didn’t want to calculate anything anymore.
I didn’t want to be the mastermind.
I didn’t want to be a savior or a villain.
I just wanted to let go, to dissolve into that pitch-black ceiling.
Toga didn’t ask if I was okay.
She didn’t need those empty questions.
Instead, she crawled closer.
Slowly.
Softly, like a wild cat.
Her cold nose brushed against my neck.
Toga inhaled deeply, like a beast catching the scent of an injured prey’s blood.
“You smell of dust… of rust…” Toga whispered beside my ear, trembling with a dark, ecstatic excitement.
“…and the scent of complete exhaustion.”
Before I could react or even intended to push her away, sharp fangs scraped against my collarbone.
And she bit down.
Not deep enough to kill, but strong enough to pierce the skin.
I grimaced, a soft groan escaping through my teeth, but I didn’t resist.
My arms felt as heavy as lead, hanging limply at my sides.
Toga licked the blood seeping from the wound.
Her eyes closed as she savored it.
“Your blood is so bitter today.” She whispered, hot breath brushing against the bleeding mark.
“So heavy.
Are you unhappy?”
Toga climbed on top of me.
Her small hands caressed my chest while her mad yet intensely focused eyes locked onto my face.
“Let me drain it all.
Let me drink up that terrible, suffocating pressure… until there’s nothing left inside you except me.”
I looked at her with empty eyes.
Every moral limit, every shred of reason had evaporated from my brain.
“Do whatever you want, Himiko.” I muttered, my voice hollow and lifeless in the quiet space.
Then I squeezed my eyes shut.
“I don’t give a fuck anymore.”
Hearing my absolute surrender, Toga’s eyes widened, blazing with twisted pleasure.
She took my resignation as an official invitation.
And she immediately seized control.
In the dark, stifling space, the obstructive layers of clothing were quickly discarded.
Toga’s touches were frantic, greedy, overwhelmingly possessive yet laced with a strange reverence.
Every kiss she pressed against my lips was thick with the metallic taste of my own blood.
Sharp nails dug deep into my shoulders as if trying to carve her existence into my flesh.
Toga guided both of us into a desperate, hurried rhythm.
I just lay there.
Motionless.
Letting her consume me.
Letting the crude, raw physical pleasure drown the despair eating away at my mind.
I let myself fall freely, allowing the darkness of lust and madness to swallow me completely.
But then, amid the heavy panting and the loud creaking of the cheap mattress… I felt a drop of water fall onto my cheek.
Toga was looking down at me.
Those golden eyes were still wild, still out of control.
But now… they were flooded with tears.
Those hot tears kept rolling down her flushed face.
Toga wasn’t just using me to satisfy her bloodlust.
She was clinging to me, clawing at me the way a drowning person clings to the only life raft in a stormy ocean.
“Don’t look at me with those eyes, Ryuga…” Toga choked, her voice shattered, carrying a weakness, panic, and rawness that cut to the heart.
“…You’re the only one who didn’t throw me away.
If you break too… then who am I supposed to love?”
That sentence… those tears… struck like a sledgehammer, shattering my hollow shell.
This wasn’t normal love.
Don’t mistake it.
It was a disease.
A toxic, sick, and extremely twisted dependence.
But right here, in this rotten, foul-smelling room, her warped devotion was the most genuine, the only thing I could feel amid the reality I was lost in.
Toga wasn’t a tool to advance the plot.
She wasn’t a future villain for me to exploit.
She was just as lost as I was.
It had always been the truth, an obvious fact, yet everyone including myself had only been looking at her dark side and never at what remained.
This wasn’t manga panels with black-and-white or colored lines.
It wasn’t 24fps anime with cinematic animation and shading.
And it certainly wasn’t dry lines of text like a light novel.
This was reality.
Everything I had done was real.
The feeling of being loved by Himiko was real.
All the sensations I had experienced and was experiencing were real, not a dream or a movie script.
Maybe I had focused too much on what lay ahead and not enough on what was around me…
So from this moment on, start cherishing the things around you, Ryuga… no…”me”.
I’d thought enough.
I reached up and tightly gripped Toga’s slender waist in a sudden motion
With one swift, strong, decisive movement, I flipped the situation.
I pinned her down, pressing her bare back firmly into the creaking mattress.
Toga’s mouth fell open as she gasped for air.
Her eyes widened in shock at the sudden reversal of power that left her no time to react.
I used my thumb to roughly wipe the tear from her cheek, then leaned down close, bringing our lips so near it felt painful and oppressive.
“I’m not breaking, Himiko,” I said slowly in a low, rough voice.
“And I’m never abandoning you.
If we have to go to hell, we’ll burn that underworld together and climb back up to the surface.”
Toga’s breath caught.
A mad, twisted, yet terrifyingly beautiful smile began to bloom on her tear-streaked, flushed face.
“Yes… Ryuga…” She moaned, the sound stuck in her throat.
From that moment I seized back control.
I answered her frenzied intensity with an overwhelming, calculated yet equally wild rhythm.
We discarded every damned distraction outside.
Sank into each other.
Tore at each other.
Entwined so tightly we couldn’t separate and ignored the world.
Hot?
How the fuck would I know.
My mind was completely empty now, submerged in the most primitive, crude desires.
The price for reclaiming dominance was the thin skin on my back and sides burning fiercely from friction against the rough mattress.
But that sharp pain was quickly drowned out, crushed by the extreme stimulation of watching Himiko’s mad, ecstatic smile right beneath me…