After school, I stopped by the bookstore.
"Hey, Taka. You’re early again today."
"Hello, Minori. I’ll take those."
"Thanks. Honestly, they’re pretty heavy."
Mizuki Minori.
She was the manager of the bookstore where I worked part-time. Her pale sky-blue hair matched her sky-blue eyes, and with her white skin and ponytail tied up for ease of movement, she was dressed in jeans and working as usual.
"Don’t you ever hang out with your friends, Taka? At your age, you should be having some fun."
"I’m fine. I just want to work a little and save money."
I’d be a first-year high school student soon. I’d have to leave the orphanage when I became an adult, and since money would always be necessary if anything happened, I wanted to save up by working part-time.
"Hmm. So it’s not that you don’t have any friends?"
...
I couldn’t trust people. That was why I kept my distance from everyone except the people at the orphanage.
"You don’t seem unpopular, though. You’re good-looking, so I bet girls your age are sneaking glances at you. Right?"
I thought my looks were pretty plain.
Short black hair, and tan skin that leaned a little on the darker side.
I was about 175 centimeters tall, so I was on the taller side, but not so much that people seemed to notice it immediately.
My face had no especially striking features, and my eyes were a little droopy, giving me a sleepy look. If anything stood out, it was probably the dimples I got when I smiled.
"Taka, do you ever think about becoming a Hero?"
...
I had seen reality. I had seen that Heroes were full of lies.
For me now, a Hero was...
"Minori, I..."
Just as I was about to answer, a huge explosion rang out.
What was that?
I stepped out of the bookstore to figure out what was happening.
What I saw was a slime-like Villain grabbing a person and controlling him, making it look as if he were firing off his Quirk repeatedly.
Huh? Wait. That person over there is...
"Bakugo?"
Was he caught by the Villain? Then what were the Heroes doing?
"I can’t handle anything above a two-lane road."
"My Quirk doesn’t match well against fire-type attacks. Let someone else handle it this time."
Hah... so this was what Heroes were like after all. They preached justice with their mouths, but the moment they could use the excuse that it was "bad matchups," they abandoned the victim right in front of them.
I should get Minori out of here and evacuate.
"Hey, stop!!"
I saw it. A plain-looking boy with green hair, Midoriya Izuku, ran forward as Bakugo shouted at him.
"Why you, of all people!!"
"I don’t know. I just... because you looked like you wanted help!!"
I was stunned. He had run out to save someone for nothing more than that reason.
And then the Heroes rushed out to stop Izuku, but someone got to him before they did.
"A Pro always risks his life."
DETROIT SMASH!!!!!!
It was Japan’s No. 1 Hero, All Might.
______________________________________
The incident was over, and Izuku got scolded.
Bakugo, on the other hand, was praised for having a good Quirk.
I was speechless at the sight. It was true that it had been dangerous, but no one had gone near the Villain, and yet he had still run out to save someone.
"I want to be a Hero who helps people."
That was my starting point, something I had held in my heart a long time ago.
I wanted to...
______________________________________
After things had calmed down, I took Minori home. She said I was worrying over nothing, but the incident had already happened. There was nothing wrong with being overly cautious.
Before parting with Minori, I gave the answer I hadn’t been able to say at the bookstore.
"I’m thinking of applying to the Hero Course."
I decided it all of a sudden. But that was fine. Today, I had seen a tiny light in Heroes. I thought that light could become a fire that would illuminate the path for people.
Just as I was thinking that, I bumped into someone walking past me.
"Hey, where are you looking? You want to start something?"
I turned my head, and the man, breathing hard, grabbed me by the collar.
"If you’re going to space out like that, of course you’ll run into people!!"
The man raised his fist, and I reflexively grabbed the wrist of the hand holding my collar.
"Huh?"
It happened in an instant. I twisted his wrist slightly as I held it, forcing him to let go of my collar, then used my other hand to strike the inside of his elbow with my palm. As a result, the supporting muscles couldn’t hold, and his shoulder dislocated.
"Aaaagh!!"
The man screamed in pain and dropped to his knees, glaring at Taka’s face in front of him.
His face was full of rage, but before long, fear appeared there too.
I looked down at him with a cold expression, my eyes a gold color that didn’t seem human at all.
Taka stared at him for a moment, then turned away and kept walking. The man was left with the illusion that he couldn’t even breathe from the sudden fear and tension.
"Who the hell is that guy?"
______________________________________
This is the story of me admiring Heroes, the story of me becoming disappointed in Heroes, and this is...
the story of me becoming a Hero.
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