After emerging from the Yaesu exit through a pristine underground passage, the two of them strolled for about five minutes until they reached a nearby park.
People were ambling along the paths and basking in the sunlight.
Without hesitation, Sumire headed straight for a secluded corner of the park.
There, a man in a loose left-sleeved shirt was gazing downward at the ground.
She approached him and said, "Hello. I’m Sumire—the one who visited you before. I’ve come back as promised."
He remained silent, as if he hadn’t heard her.
As usual, Kirishima scrutinized the man.
The man’s grimy clothes and disheveled hair immediately caught the eye.
His matted hair obscured his face, leaving his features barely visible.
From afar, one could note that the left side of his long-sleeved shirt hung loosely from his shoulder.
He looked every bit the stereotypical homeless man.
"Kota! It’s me, Sumire. We met before, remember?"
Only then did he slowly lift his head.
The shadows of heavy, dark circles framed his desolate eyes.
In a languid, listless tone, he spoke as if he might collapse into the ground at any moment, "The sun."
"Pardon?"
"You’re blocking the sunlight. Step aside a bit."
Startled, Sumire quickly shifted to the side.
Squinting against the glare, he gradually turned his head toward Sumire and said, "Right. Sumire. I remember now. You barged in, exchanged a few words, and promised to return, didn’t you? What does a reporter like you want with a guy like me? There isn’t much of worth here."
"I didn’t come solely for an article. More importantly, have you eaten? Last time you mentioned you hadn’t eaten for two days. If you’re short on cash, I can buy you a meal."
"No need. I’ve got money too. And have I eaten? No. I simply can’t. Food just won’t go down. Yet, this damn life of mine is so stubborn that even starvation eventually becomes bearable. Hah. Damn it. There isn’t a single thing about this miserable body that I care for."
His voice was dry and desolate.
Then he added in a tone laced with bitterness, "Why do you keep bothering a nobody like me? Are you after whatever cash I might still have?"
"Not at all. I just came to let you know about your situation and to offer help."
"Spare me the nonsense. It’s not about money—and certainly not that ridiculous line you just recited. So tell me, what is it?
"Do you want to sleep with me? Is your desire off the charts? Or do you get some twisted satisfaction from demeaning a wretched, pitiful man?"
At those words, Sumire couldn’t help but wince.
Kirishima was inwardly repulsed by the man’s crude tone, yet he remained silent—for Sumire, too, had been unusually quiet, as if holding back for some reason.
"Please, don’t say such things. I heard you have a family, Mr. Kota. You shouldn’t speak to someone barely old enough to be your daughter like that."
Kirishima thought Sumire’s comment was unnecessary.
If he were the type to apologize when confronted, he wouldn’t have made such lewd remarks in the first place.
Yet his reaction surprised everyone.
"Daughter? You said daughter? How many years has it been now? Ah, Airi. I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry. It was all my fault. I shouldn’t have done any of it. I should never have been a Hero. It’s all on me!"
Covering his face with both hands, he muttered incoherently.
Kirishima furrowed his brow as he listened, piecing together the painful context.
Even so, Sumire did not appear shocked by his sudden panic.
Grabbing his shoulders, she shouted, "Kota! Kota! Snap out of it!"
Despite Sumire’s forceful grip, he continued babbling with his face hidden for a few agonizing moments before finally regaining composure.
After wiping his face, he resumed his former tone, "Now that I’m back to normal, stop shaking me. Don’t pick on an old man who’s lost all his strength."
"Are you alright?"
Receiving Sumire’s worried look, he replied flatly, "I’m fine, so quit asking. What do you want to know? I’ll give you a rough answer—just make it quick and then leave. And what’s with that kid behind you? He still looks like a child; tell him to go somewhere else. Even in this state, I can tell what’s fit for young ears and what isn’t."
"Normally, when someone claims they’re not a kid, there’s some truth in it—but I’m not so young that I can’t understand you. So, speak your mind."
"You’re definitely too young to grasp what I’m about to say. No, perhaps you should hear it after all. Fine. Since it’s come to this, listen carefully, kid. You want to be a Hero too, don’t you?"
"For now, yes..."
"These days, every Tom, Dick, and Harry fancies themselves a Hero. What’s so great about it? Television’s spoiled all the kids."
"I’m not trying to be a Hero because of TV."
In a voice heavy with emptiness, he muttered his discontent, and Kirishima felt his mood sink further as he observed him.
At first glance, the man resembled a spent remnant, as deflated as burned-out ash.
Yet behind his eyes, rage and hatred churned faintly but relentlessly.
He snorted dismissively at Kirishima, "Hmph. Is it the internet or videos then? You’re not even at an age to be spouting off about Heroes from fairy tales. Whatever. What’s the point of chatting with you? Just listen to what I’ve got to say. Once you hear it, you won’t want to be a Hero anymore. And if you do, then you’re nothing but a fool."
What followed was, in many ways, the classic tale of the fallen Hero.
He recalled that in his youth he had been a powerful Hero—famous and popular in his own right.
Righteous and capable, he had married young and built a warm, loving family.
It had been a life with nothing lacking.
"That’s what I once believed. Foolishly."
Clutching his loose shoulder, he continued in a voice that seemed to emerge from deep within, "My dedication to my work and my love for my family began to crumble over one small incident."
In truth, it wasn’t even a monumental event.
He had set out, as always, to capture a Villain and had simply failed.
Though he had pitied the victims destined to suffer at the hands of that scoundrel, he could never have imagined that his own family would pay the ultimate price.
All he had vowed was to catch the bastard next time and to comfort the sidekick who had faltered.
"Heh. And there was no next time. I was the idiot—I shouldn’t have listened to that bastard’s parting words about remembering my face."
About a month had passed since he returned to his routine of patrolling and relentlessly tracking the criminal.
One ordinary day, when he came home from work carrying his daughter’s birthday cake, he was met instead by the ghastly remains of his family.
His wife and daughter lay before him as lifeless corpses, their faces twisted in agony as if they had suffered until their final breaths.
Behind the bodies, the bastard stood grinning while licking the blood off his blade—a grotesque, mocking smile.
"I should have killed him then. I shouldn’t have let him get away. Damn it..."
For a moment, a shock gripped him—as if his heart had turned to ice—but that swiftly gave way to a burst of furious rage as he lunged at the bastard.
A brutal, life-and-death struggle ensued, and in the end, he failed to kill his foe.
All he managed was to seize the bastard’s right arm, even as he lost his own left arm from the shoulder down.
As the criminal fled, he taunted, vowing never to forget him.
After the bastard left the house, he clutched the mangled corpses of his wife and daughter and howled until his voice was hoarse.
From that moment on, he pursued the bastard like a madman.
He shut down his office and roamed the streets, determined to track him down.
Though everyone warned him and pleaded for his safety, he simply could not stand idle.
All his efforts were in vain—the bastard had been captured in another region by a different Hero.
For a man who had been waiting for the chance to exact vengeance, it was a devastating blow.
He attended the trial one final time, screaming for the bastard’s execution, only to be met with an unyielding verdict.
The criminal was condemned to confinement in Tartarus.
"As he was dragged from the courtroom, he said something to me—I still cannot forget it. He claimed that the screams of my wife and daughter were delightful. That listening to them wail like pigs while calling for me was so utterly laughable he had no choice but to kill them."
With grinding teeth, he spat out, "And after that, everything just fell apart in the most mundane way possible."
After saying so much, he dropped his head, exhausted.
Looking at him, Kirishima suspected he might be suffering from PTSD.
He had witnessed many such broken souls in his previous life.
There were those who had endured the terror of battlefields, where every heartbeat was laden with tension; those who had walked a tightrope between life and death; and those who had lost something irreplaceably precious.
Individuals who should have been destined for glory instead found themselves crashing into the abyss, rolling in the dirt.
One of Kirishima’s few friends from his past had suffered this fate, too.
Born into poverty, his friend had enlisted immediately after high school and was deployed to Iraq.
Kirishima knew little of what became of him thereafter.
Some said he spent time on the battlefield before finishing his service in Korea—or perhaps Japan.
Kirishima later encountered him after discharge, during a match in another state.
He had been sitting in a pitiful state along the route where Kirishima was working, and though Kirishima tried his best to help him recover, it was all in vain.
One rainy day, his friend took his own life with a pistol.
The man before him now bore an uncanny resemblance to that old friend—from his weary, crumbling appearance down to the intense emotions swirling in his eyes.
"Hey, kid. Look at me right now. What do you see?"
"You don’t look very good."
"Really? Then perhaps I’m doing better than I thought. I’m standing on the opposite side of damn heaven, and, fittingly enough, I’ve carved out a little slice of hell for myself. I don’t even know when it all went wrong."
Kirishima silently met the man’s glare.
He deserved a measure of respect.
There was neither reason nor right for Kirishima to pity him—he would simply listen to what the man had to say.
"I served the citizens. I bled for them, shouted for them, and fought for them. Then, one day, I woke up to find my left arm gone and my family murdered. Those wretched Public Safety Commission idiots never avenged them!"
Though his voice faltered, he suddenly roared, "All I ever wanted was to kill that bastard! But they wouldn’t even grant me that one simple thing! The very people I protected—once I became a broken shell—they hurled stones at me. They treated me as nothing more than scrap metal! From the very start, I was nothing but a guard dog bred to fight for their benefit!"
As he unleashed his anguish like an injured lion, Kirishima felt a bitter taste settle in his mouth.
In any human society, souls like his were destined to emerge.
Perhaps his claim to have money wasn’t entirely false.
If he had been a true Hero, he likely wouldn’t have lacked resources—and he even mentioned that he once had a home.
And yet, unable to bear the weight of his losses, he wandered as a homeless vagrant.
Haunted by the moment his wife and daughter perished, he could never bring himself to spend his money and find solace.
"I realized it far too late, kid. You want to be a Hero? Just stop. It’s not as glorious as you imagine."
Kirishima met the man’s gaze without a word—a gaze that sank into a dark abyss colliding with one set ablaze by fierce determination.
"Thank you for the advice, Kota. But I’m still going to become a Hero. I have my own dreams."
"Is that so? Fine. Young people have their own paths, I suppose. Just chalk this up to the ramblings of a washed-up old man and move on."
"I don’t think it’s nonsense at all. I’ve learned a lot from you. It’s just that I have my own journey to complete. I doubt you’ll ever need my help, but if you do, please contact me here."
Kirishima scribbled his phone number and handed it over before stepping back.
He scoffed, yet he didn’t discard the slip of paper.
After a while, as the conversation wound down, Sumire stepped forward with a few questions, which he answered patiently.
When he finally dismissed them with an impatient wave, Sumire and Kirishima exchanged goodbyes and departed.
He never once pleaded for their help.
Kirishima and Sumire walked away under a heavy, solemn silence.
After a thoughtful pause, Sumire asked cautiously, "Kirishima, are you all right?"
Her brief question carried a world of meaning, and Kirishima replied evenly, "Yes. There’s no reason for me not to be. I feel sorry for his plight, but there’s nothing I can do."
"Still, do you really want to be a Hero?"
"Yes. He is who he is, and I am who I am. I’ve already steeled myself to risk losing something if that’s what it takes."
He didn’t say anything about not being willing to risk losing those dear to him.
Yet the calm determination in Kirishima’s eyes betrayed a deep and unwavering conviction.
"And if a man aspires to be the strongest, he must be ready to protect those close to him."
In that moment, Kirishima broke into a gentle smile.
To him, life was a constant reminder that one could never have everything they desired.
But this was his second chance at life.
If fate had granted him an opportunity unlike any other, then surely he must chase a dream as singular and extraordinary as his own.
Kirishima truly believed that he could achieve his ambitions without losing anyone dear to him.
Sumire watched him, dazzled by his radiant smile and quiet strength.
For a fleeting moment she worried that perhaps she might discourage his youthful resolve—but that concern soon proved unfounded.
The man before her had found his center—a steadfast force guiding him through the world.
For reasons she couldn’t quite explain, her heart began to race.
It felt as though she had become the first witness to the birth of a legend, walking side by side with Kirishima.
In him, there was no trace of the dark shadow cast by a fallen Hero—only the promise of a bright, unyielding future.
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