Big game

"Hell yeah, today's dinner is looking good." Said Sandatsu aloud as he bashed the head of a small viper against a tree. It'd be the main dish, accompanied by a few mushrooms he picked up. His diet over the past two days had consisted of bugs and a frog he caught. And despite the lack of proper meals and constant walking, he felt full of energy, as if the mission had just started.

On the other hand, he was still as nervous as he was during his mission debriefing, probably because he had to meet his mother.

Three days ago, Sandatsu stood in front of his mother's office. The entire section of the building had been built in a brutalist style, with bare concrete and tall ceilings. Every area was open and had stone colors, broken by the occasional wooden door or discrete piece of furniture. These features were even more exaggerated in his mother's office. The doors were larger, the ceiling was hard to see, and the concrete darkened in color to an almost coal tone.

He noticed how thick the doors were when he opened them. Their weight made it feel like opening the gates of a castle.

The inside of the office was even bigger. His mother was sitting at the end of the room, behind a large table made of black marble, her attention focused on a tablet she was holding. She was sitting on a large leather chair with her legs crossed. Sandatsu couldn't find anything to sit on, so he stood in front of her desk. In fact, he couldn't really see anything else beyond the desk and leather chair. Everything felt cold and uninviting.

"Tomorrow, you will go to Jaku City for your first mission as a trainee enforcer." Shihai Owari's voice was strong and commanding.

"And what about-"

"Your school has been informed about your absence for the rest of the week." She cut Sandatsu off. "Over the last three weeks, three people have died and a fourth has disappeared. Autopsies suggest they were bear attacks. There have also been break-ins in several locations, including a veterinary clinic and a convenience store on the outskirts. Surveillance cameras at the store caught a bear doing it, but it acted like a human, walking on two legs all the time and opening doors. Your mission is to get rid of it."

"Wait, wait, this is too much. What if it's a person? Maybe it's a mutant quirk."

Shihai finally looked at him.

"Spending more time trying to see if it's human or animal would take time, and that could mean more victims." "The higher-ups have given the green light to this operation."

"But why me?" "Wouldn't a more experienced agent be a better choice?"

Sandatsu's mother smiled.

"Why would I risk the lives of my agents when I can just send you?"

After this, Shihai got someone to drive her son to the outskirts of Jaku City. With nothing but his hero costume, Sandatsu made his way into the mountains. He spent two days hiking and eating whatever he could scavenge, using the cape of his costume to cover himself when he slept. He felt comfortable this way. It wasn't too different from his daily life, where he lived in a tent in the woods behind the school.

Every day after class, he saw his classmates hanging out and talking together, making plans, being normal (hero) students, while he looked around for edible roots and removed tree bark, looking for beetle larvae for dinner. He didn't resent them, though. In fact, Sandatsu wanted to befriend them. He felt uncomfortable only remembering them by their quirks, while their faces remained blurry in his memory. Maybe he should start by trying to get along with his team for the battle training class.

Sandatsu's train of thought was interrupted when he noticed a partially intact bear paw print. He looked around. Small broken branches and sticks—the signs that indicated that a bear had in fact passed through that part of the forest recently—were there. But why was there only a single print? The trainee enforcer followed the trail, finding the remains of prints every now and then, and not all of them were pawprints. After a few minutes, Sandatsu discovered partial footprints along with the pawprints of the bear.

The trail led Sandatsu to a small clearing after an hour of walking. Someone had set up camp there; there was a tent, a couple backpacks, a portable fridge, and a stove. No campfire to be seen though. Sandatsu checked inside the tent. There were several layers of sleeping bags and blankets, a plastic bag with a few bandages stained with dry blood, and a backpack.

Rummaging in the backpack, Sandatsu found a can opener, hiking shoes, and other camping equipment, but there were also student textbooks and a student ID.

The picture on the ID was of a serious-looking student, around the same age as Sandatsu. He had short, dark hair, glasses, and acne.

"Himegawa Rio..." Sandatsu's investigation was interrupted by the sound of something moving outside. Leaves crunching and bushes rustling Whatever it was, it was keeping its distance from the tent and moving around it.

Sandatsu was keeping track of the movement outside. He kept his guard up but was still unsure if he should run or use this chance to confront whatever lurked outside.

"Boo!"

His train of thought was interrupted by the sound of a distant voice, coming from the opposite direction of the predatory presence outside. In the couple seconds that Sandatsu was distracted, his presence quickly closed the distance to the tent. Sandatsu only saw the huge claws of a bear. Given how he was crouched inside the tent, the claw swipe got his face, tearing the skin and part of his nose. The force of the attack was great enough to send the boy and the tent flying a couple of meters.

Despite the pain and fear, Sandatsu's conditioning was what drove his actions. Activating his stolen rewind quirk to recover his face, he moved outside of the tent using the large tear the bear had made. He stood up, feeling the steps of the animal as it charged him again. He tried to start running, but the bear was faster. Sandatsu felt as if a card had just hit him in the back. He didn't have time to even fall face first; the bear had bitten his right arm and was holding him from it.

He used rewind again. The restoration of his flesh helped push the teeth of the bear out, giving Sandatsu enough room to break free. He didn't run this time. Instead, he turned around and delivered a solid punch to the animal. The enhanced strength from the rewind was enough to push the animal back, and it would have fallen if it weren't for the fact that the bear had two extra sets of limbs coming from its back and helping it keep balance. In fact, it was sprouting more limbs, especially around the shoulders. They looked like exaggerations. Their claws were longer, some crooked, and too many per paw. The limbs themselves were longer as well, with several extra joints.

"A quirk..." said Sandatsu as he stared in awe at the mass of claws and fur.

Himegawa Rio was having trouble keeping up with the intruder, and even tried to distract him when he was inside the tent. Unlike simply controlling it, which was almost effortless, forcing the bear to use its quirk required endurance. Still, he had a smile on his face. Everything would go according to his plan. This intruder was only a temporary nuisance. He had already suffered enough, and now he deserved his revenge. This nobody wouldn't stand in his way for much longer.

Rio had been practicing with his quirk for the past three weeks, so controlling the bear was second nature to him. That bear was a gift from the heavens to aid him in his revenge. He had been bullied for years for being considered quirkless. It got to the point where he decided to end it all. Rio had gone deep into the mountains to hang himself, and that's when he saw that beast. A huge mass of clawed limbs and fur. His resolve to die was not that great since he tried to run away from the bear. The animal caught up to him with ease, but when it took the first bite out of Rio's arm, it froze.

It turns out he wasn't quirkless after all.

Himegawa Rio spent the next few weeks living in the woods, learning about his quirk and planning his revenge on his bullies. His newfound quirk allowed him to control creatures that have taken his blood into their system. The control lasted a few hours with a drop but could be extended with more blood. He had kept the bear under his control constantly, periodically giving it more blood and using it to raid rural locations for supplies.

Some hikers had seen the bear in one of these raids, and so he had to kill them because he couldn't let anyone interfere with his revenge. Rio planned to move to the hostel his class would stay at during their school trip and then use the bear to slaughter them.

That bear was proof that God wanted him to kill them. After all, what were the chances of him finding an animal with a quirk and being able to control it? Rio just needed to kill the intruder and then relocate his camp.

He had been following the bear and the caped boy from a distance to better control his weaponized pet. It was a bit hard to tell from far away, but Rio thought that the air around the intruder had changed. He seemed focused and showed little to no fear. Maybe he gave up? Whatever, it saved him the pain of having to chase him around.

But before Rio did anything, the intruder stepped towards the bear.

This startled him, and he mentally commanded the bear to attack. A single coordinated swing of a few of those branching claws tore off Sandatsu's right arm, but he still got closer. That lack of fear confused Rio, but it didn't stop him.

The bear lunged forward. Sandatsu tried to dodge to the side, but the bear caught him, biting him on the side of the stomach and lifting him up as it stood on two legs.

Sandatsu's body moved on it's own. He pressed the stump of his right arm against one of the bear's eyes and once again used rewind. He didn't have that much energy left in him, so he focused most of the restoration on the arm, only leaving enough for his other injuries to keep him alive instead of fully recovering. The arm started regrowing, and with the strength boost, it went through the eye, pierced the skull of the beast, and went straight into its brain.

The extra arms of the bear immediately started to wither and turn into dust, and it fell to the ground. Sandatsu stood up after a few seconds, weak but alive.

Rio's legs were shaking. He took a couple of steps back in disbelief, stepping on a branch. The sound caught Sandatsu's attention. In the distance, Rio could see how the silhouette of the intruder, that of a torn cape covered in blood, was quickly deformed as it grew dozens of arms from its back.

"So, how was it?" Shihai's voice echoed in her office. After spending all that time out in nature, Sandatsu felt that the decoration was even more oppressive.

"I've already submitted my report," he answered.

"I know. I'm asking how you feel now that you have taken your first life."

Sandatsu had tried to apprehend Himegawa Rio, but the latter pulled out a knife covered in his own blood. In response, Sandatsu used the quirk he had gotten from the bear and broke Rio's neck. He didn't feel anything when he did it, and he still doesn't feel anything now. It had been a reflex, and he was protecting himself. Now that he had Rio's quirk, he understood how dangerous that bloody knife really had been. A single drop of that blood inside him, and he would have taken control.

Both his mind and gut were telling him it had been a matter of survival. That sense of self-preservation had driven him in that moment. But something deeper, something different than instinct or conscious thought, had taken hold of him for a split second back there. When Himegawa Rio died, the thought 'It's mine' crept into an isolated corner of Sandatsu's mind.

"I did what I had to," said the young trainee enforcer.

Shihai smiled. It wasn't her usual sinister grin, but a warm, genuine smile. She stood up and gently patted Sandatsu's head.

"Good boy."

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Pub: 01 May 2023 00:54 UTC
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