Chapter 44: CHAPTER 041(Declared: War On Heroes)
Discord: https://discord.gg/K7f8qGpvuk
pat.reon (5 Chapters ahead): Keanu_Eugene
CHAPTER START---
Sitting in his kitchen Law enjoys a simple dinner of white rice, black mushrooms, and grilled chicken.
After a long and admittedly difficult workout, Law sits at the counter and turns on the TV, taking a sip of his water as the news starts.
"Welcome to Shinjitsu news," the anchor starts, a slender older gentleman with water for hair, styled like a constantly flowing waterfall but never reaching past his shoulders or even touching his grey suit. "Following the villain attack at UA's disaster simulation facility yesterday, new information has been uncovered."
Law takes another sip of his water and continues eating, eyes still on the screen as the man continues.
"The statement released by UA only hours after the attack has been completely confirmed by the administration, the police have also confirmed via statements and claims the villains made during the attack that they fully intended to attack and kill All Might, our Symbol Of Peace.
Seventy-seven low-level thugs were gathered as well as the ringleader, a blue-haired man with dried and cracked grey skin and multiple detached human hands gripping his body, he goes by the name 'Shigaraki' as far as officials know."
A picture of Shigaraki appears, bound in metal restraints.
"His Quirk is a disintegration Quirk, when all five of his fingers on either hand touch anything it immediately begins falling apart, organic and inorganic matter alike.
Accompanying him was his presumed second in command, the man identified by the name 'Kurogiri', a villain possessing the most rare and sought after of all Quirk types, a warping Quirk, specifically Warp Gate.
His real face and body structure are unknown as the purple mist created by his Quirk never leaves his body."
A picture of Kurogiri appears, bound from head to toe in metal restraints, the purple mist seeping through the gaps in the metal.
"Guess he needs to move his body to activate Warp Gate," Horizon can't help but smile at that, another way Hand Of God is better.
"And finally we have the bio-engineered creature, codenamed a Nomu," this time a much less clear picture appears, a distance shot from within USJ by one of the few working security drones that were signal blocked from the main campus, but thankfully the cameras worked.
The picture was of Nomu standing beside Shigaraki, Eraser and Thirteen were in the corner of the frame, surely moments before Horizon entered to finish the fight.
"This creature was created by horrific means, using four separate corpses as genetic material to force their Quirks into one being. It has no sentience and is technically dead, a walking corpse only existing to obey commands. Truly these villains have hit depths previously undreamt of by even the most wretched of scum," the man shakes his head in disgust before he continues.
"This creature was created specifically to kill All Might, it had a combination of Quirks which have thankfully been identified, by the work of Horizon during the fight and the arrogant boasting of Shigaraki. Shock Absorption, Super-Power, and Super-Regeneration."
They show a few short clips of Nomu punching, ripping apart the landscape with pure air pressure.
"Nezu really went all out with building my reputation," Horizon chuckles, fully understanding what the next part of the announcement would be.
"Thankfully the villains failed to hurt any students, and the Pros only had minor scrapes," the man said, sounding relieved and somehow proud. "While the ringleader and other villains were distracted for most of the incident the Nomu was defeated," a picture of the destroyed fountain and diced-up Nomu appears on the screen.
"The remaining thugs were easily dealt with by the students until more heroes arrived," the man says, his voice clearly swelling in anticipation. "The leader Shigaraki and his assistant Kurogiri were blocked by the present Pros, Eraser-Head, and rescue hero Thirteen. And the Nomu was defeated, by a student no less..."
He pauses for a moment, and Law rolled his eyes. "Talk about building hype."
"That's right, a student from class 1A defeated the monster that they built to kill All Might," a picture of some students walking back into the main campus, stepping off the bus, appeared on the screen. Clearly shot from beyond the UA boundary in the street, the image was barely visible.
"Ok that's more than I expected," Law admits. Seeing a picture of him, dressed in full Hero Costume, walking beside a slightly blurry Momo and Tokoyami, with a clear arrow pointed at him.
"This student has been allegedly identified as the 'Horizon' from UA's report," the man says excitedly. "Credited with taking down the Nomu -which was made to kill All Might-, as well as nullifying Kurogiri's Warp Gate to prevent further havoc and violence. Truly a promising start to the career of a future hero. No other information is known about him and UA won't comment further, but I'm sure we'll be seeing him at the Sports Festival!"
Law smiles at that, "yeah, when I win..."
"But sadly the villains were not done here," the anchor says. "While the strength of UA's class 1A and two of their Pros was enough to defend their students, today has proven that is not the case of other Hero Courses across Japan."
Law sits up at that, not sure what the hell he was talking about.
"After their bloody and devastating escape from custody yesterday, Shigaraki, Kurogiri, and the USJ Nomu have yet to make another appearance. But a scourge of much weaker Nomus has attacked seven Hero Courses today alone. Dozens have been reported dead at each attack, and most of the corpses were taken for what officials believe to be further experimentation and creation of Nomus," the man sounds moments away from crying.
Law looks genuinely confused at that, "why didn't they just wait and attack UA again? That doesn't make much sense..."
"It seems that the villains care about more than just killing our Symbol Of Peace," the man says bitterly. "They want to destroy all our hopes and dreams, to eradicate our guardians and the great places we've dedicated to training and raising them. They want to kill all heroes, and yes, they are certainly a fearsome foe..."
The man's expression shifts from sad and somber to determined, almost angry as his flowing water hair begins swirling and bubbling.
"But we won't break that easily!" he yells out, raising a fist to the sky, a fanatical tinge in his voice. "UA and their first years of class 1A have proven that these villains can be defeated! So I'm sure that the Pros will capture them, and if they ever have the chance to come face to face with All Might, he'll Smash them into pieces and lock them in Tartarus with no issue, as he always does to the scum that threatens the safety of our beloved country!"
The man tries to catch his breath from his rant that Law would bet surely inspired the masses.
"Well shit," Law chuckles. "That worked a whole lot better than expected...and Nezu really went above and beyond with that picture of Nomu's defeat," Law takes out his phone and sees Horizon's Follower count steadily marching toward 3 Million, sitting at half that number when he sat down to eat. "Heroes live and die by popularity and public opinion, so I'll be living very well."
The man finally composes himself, his hair returning to gently flowing streams, "however, unfortunately not everyone shares these hopeful views. Public outrage and scrutiny at the security and conduct at the attacked Hero Courses have never been higher," pictures of protests and borderline riots appear on the screen.
Law rolls his eyes, "scared people not sure what to do when their heroes start seemingly failing, not surprising at all since most of them probably can't even fight some Quirkless brat with a knife."
The screen then has a picture of crowds holding candles and placing flowers at the gates of multiple Hero Course schools. "Others have come out in force to share their sympathy for the lives lost because of these villains and their monsters. And some are even questioning the capability of the Pros at the affected schools, with good reason of course. And a vocal few are calling for All Might to stop teaching and resume his patrols, equating this attack to his lack of presence on the streets."
"Bullshit, he's always ditching school to babysit you useless fucks," Law grumbles, now finishing up his meal and moving to do the dishes.
"But no matter the outcome, one thing is clear," the news anchor says. "These villains have declared war on all heroes, no matter if you are training or a fully licensed Pro, and I know our heroes won't let this stand, so if the League Of Villains is watching this, my message to you is, 'Enjoy these last few days of freedom, because they're quickly counting down...,' now onto other news, Hawks---"
Law cuts off the TV immediately.
"A war on Heroes," he considers it for a moment. "Well, wars need War Heroes on both sides... guess I've found another easy way to climb the ranks, now I should call Nezu and thank him for the popularity boost..."
END CHAPTER---
pat.reon (5 Chapters ahead): Keanu_Eugene
Chapter 45: CHAPTER 042(Superhuman Potential)
Discord: https://discord.gg/K7f8qGpvuk
pat.reon (5 Chapters ahead): Keanu_Eugene
CHAPTER START---
---Friday, 2 Days After USJ...
Law sat at the patio furniture outside his home. The massive 20m by 10m pool was clear and stagnant under the mid-day sun, tempting him after his workout.
Leaning forward, wearing only his workout shorts, elbows resting on the table as he drinks some water from his bottle, MMA gloves and hand wraps in front of him, new but already torn up from constant abuse.
Law leans back and takes a deep breath, body covered in sweat and aching from another successful workout, but it wasn't enough.
"Not nearly enough," he grumbles, thinking aloud. "I won the fight but I didn't really beat Nomu, not enough...and my style just isn't compatible with something like that. Since the League Of Villains escaped with it then I may have to face it, or stronger Nomus in the future. But how do I solve the problem?"
He takes another large gulp of water and runs through the possibilities.
"Super-Regeneration is one in a two hundred million maybe, I doubt they'll have more Nomus with that, I should focus on the other aspects first. I never thought a Power Type would be able to make me actually try but that thing had a serious mix of power and durability, I won, but it wasn't clean, and it was far from economical or efficient," he grumbles, remembering how tired he was after USJ.
Law considers the scenario more thoroughly, "the main threat was the immense speed paired with my energy expenditure, I've got Shambles, Amputate, Incision, Booster Shot, Scan, Counter Shock, and Injection Shock, in addition to the cost of creating and maintaining a Room.
Amputate, Counter Shock, and Booster Shot are by far the most costly, but those are the ones I would need the most to deal with another Nomu, along with Shambles to dodge attacks. I need to either develop something that can deal with Nomu's power and regeneration or figure out how to make my moves more economical...or increase my stamina pool even more."
He sighs and rubs his head, "fuck, I've rarely really fought Power Types and they've always gone down in one hit, this Super-Regeneration shit is a nightmare. It takes me months or years to plan and execute new moves, not to mention how long it takes for me to practice enough that I can use them smoothly."
Horizon warps his phone into his hand, reading the most recent news alert, the 19th Hero Course attack by the League Of Villains and their army of Nomus.
"Looks like regenerating Nomus are super rare, and none as strong as the USJ Nomu, I've got a lot of offense already, if I'm gonna be a hero there may be times when I can't move myself or people for whatever reason, and I'm sure an army of monsters with multiple Quirks can have a reason or two... I'll need some kind of defensive move for a change."
Horizon taps the table for a minute, considering how he could solve this problem, never before needing to consider defense because he could always warp away, but now he actually had to at least pretend to care about other people and their lives. He rolls his eye at the thought.
SNAP!
He snaps his fingers as the thought forms," I don't need to create a new offense if I just upgrade the ones I have. Incision amplifies my slashes, paired with Booster Shot it can slash through a lot of stuff, if I increase my base strength and Incision then I can at least stall better until openings show up...assuming I have to fight that same Nomu again."
He quickly opens his phone and searches for 'Endeavor catches falling car,' and he instantly gets hundreds of video results.
Tapping the first he's greeted by a video of Endeavor hovering in the air and catching a car as it falls from the overpass above him, then descending to the ground and gently placing it down, with a lot of obvious effort.
"Ok he made that look a lot easier than I expected," Law admits, Endeavor was his gold standard for most things he considers when judging a hero. Perfect Quirk Mastery, perfect battlefield command, a great strategic mind, and excellent at Quirk analysis in battle, now he had to add this to the list.
"I don't know if I can tap into my latent superhuman potential to that level," he mutters. "Since his Quirk works by changing his skin and body structure and giving him a lot more energy we should be in the same boat. He's like an inch taller than me but I'm only 190lbs -86kg-, and he's like 260 -118kg-, that's a lot more muscle backing him."
Law considers this approach. Taking a more brawler style in certain situations and using his Quirk more sparingly. That's what Endeavor does and his Quirk has clear limits, he needs energy to use it and he makes sure to space out his big attacks from what Law can see, likely due to overheating he figures.
Certain Quirks give passive effects, for example, Iida's legs are super strong to compensate for the Engines in his calves. Other Quirks have bonuses that seemingly don't make much sense, like Endeavor and his low-level superhuman strength, even though his Quirk is all about fire.
This 'superhuman potential' is exactly what Law intended to take advantage of. Since his Quirk requires a high level of passive energy in his body the limits of baseline humans, -Quirkless people-, don't exactly apply to him in some regards.
This is mainly why he believes Quirkless people to be obsolete and that they simply cannot live up to the potential of those with Quirks. Because they operate with the now ancient expectations humans had, but now anyone with a Quirk could potentially exceed these limits in ways that their Quirk simply wouldn't lead you to believe.
'Quirks are just nature's way of pointing out that your limiters are off, that you've taken the next step to evolve,' is exactly how Law would put it.
"I'll have to bulk up, go from lean 193cm to maybe a few steps closer to Endeavor, but that means..." he frowns at the very thought. "Fuck, I already eat so damn much because of this Quirk and now I'll have to eat even more, and probably sleep more...that's gonna be a pain in the ass."
For the next half hour Law sits there crunching numbers and ordering a lot more food from his grocery delivery service. Realizing he'll have to drink a second large protein shake every day and either fit three more meals into his diet or make his existing meals a lot bigger.
"I wish I could just photosynthesize," he sighs. "Just wake up, drink water, lay in the sun, and enjoy the gains...lucky damn plants...I bet Ibara can do that if she tries hard enough, would make sense with vines for hair..."
Saving his meal and workout plan Law opens the class group chat for the very first time, seeing over a thousand unread messages over the last two days. Since this chat was only made minutes before boarding the bus to USJ he can already guess what they were talking about.
He sees a few mentions of his name with people tagging him to get his attention, but he just ignores them, clicking the members' list for the group to see Momo as the administrator, then scrolling halfway down the list.
"Gotcha, you're strong but not All Might strong, you'll be a good baseline for me to push myself to insane levels of base strength..." he says while hitting call on his classmate's icon.
A few seconds later and on the second ring his call is answered.
"Uh, hello?" Sato asks warily.
"Yo, Sato, you busy?"
"Wait, who is this?"
"Horizon," Law says, not understanding the confusion.
"Wait...why isn't your voice all robot-like, it's usually kinda roboty," Sato says.
Law looks genuinely confused at why this was so strange, "because I took off the visor since I'm at home."
"That comes off?! Dude, we thought that was your face!"
"Huh! Wait! Did everyone think that was my face? Is that why nobody ever asked about it?"
"Pretty much man, I mean we all had some chats about it and figured it best not to ask, I mean why else would you wear it 24/7"
"Because I don't want everyone knowing my business?" Law asks expectantly.
"Nah that doesn't make sense, why wear that thing in school anyway," Sato disregards his logic immediately. "Wait, is the body glove also just you being paranoid?"
"It's not paranoid," Law growls out.
"Dunno man, sounds like what a paranoid person would say..."
Law pinches the bridge of his nose and just sighs, "ok, can we get to why I called you please?"
"Oh right, sure thing class rep, what's up?"
"It's about your Quirk, strength enhancer right?" Law asks.
"Yeah it's called Sugar Rush, I eat 10 grams of sugar and get a time 5 boost in strength for three minutes. But as the time runs out I get really sleepy, then I crash. Every 10 grams more increases my strength by another one time and extends the limit, but only a little bit on the timer part, and I crash even harder afterward," Sato explains with a bit of hesitance, feeling rather self-conscious describing his clearly limited Quirk to Horizon of all people.
"Hmm, a rushdown Quirk that's good for one quick charge that's sure to take down some villains," Law says. "Clear strength and limits to be trained too, good potential."
"Thanks man!" Sato's voice suddenly had a small layer of pride.
"I'm actually calling you because I'm starting a new training regiment at home and needed someone to compare to."
"Oh, what do you need to know?"
"How much you can bench without your Quirk, I can solve the rest from there," Law says.
"Oh, just 700, naturally my Quirk makes it easier for me to hit high numbers since it's all about muscles. It basically puts my regular muscles into a 'power mode,' for a bit."
Even through the phone Law could tell Sato was shy about his personal records, even as impressive as they are.
"I see, I'm only at 400 right now, I think I can get my base stronger than yours but obviously you have a multiplier and I don't... that'll be a good challenge," Law says.
"That's awesome! And if you ever need a gym buddy you know how to find me!"
"I don't work out in the body glove or visor, sweat and all that, so I rather train solo, nothing personal."
"It's cool man no hard feelings, I'm just happy to help."
"Since you helped me I should at least return the favor, it's only fair," Law says, trying to keep the debts even between him and his classmates as much as possible. "I see you eating sugar cubes and cookies during training to trigger your Quirk, right?"
"Yeah, I bake em myself, taste great and the sugar is for my Quirk," Sato says plainly.
"Yeah well, half of being a hero is public image, so cut that shit out unless you only plan to market yourself to kids. Head to the support department and get some high-density sugar pills made, easier to store and you can label them 'Power Pills' or something for branding, and you can sell them as candy or whatever when you go pro, they won't taste as good but you'll get more sugar per handful and won't take as long to enter a fight."
"Oh wow..." Sato pauses for a moment. "I didn't even think about the support department being able to do stuff like that, I'll get on that right away class rep. Thanks for the advice!"
"Just returning the favor, I'll see you Monday."
"Yeah yo---" Law hangs up before Sato finishes talking.
"Honestly, he and cookie girl would have an epic bakery," Law mutters, nodding along at the idea of a bakery that sells meter-wide cookies. "Now that's a dream I can get behind..."
Gulping down the rest of his water Law gets up to go enjoy a shower, tonight Law Matani was going out on the town...
END CHAPTER---
pat.reon (5 Chapters ahead): Keanu_Eugene
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