After what felt like hours in the darkness, a glimpse of white invaded my eyes. I opened them, to realize I was once again in the dimension of The Wanderer.
"Michael Bianco, a pleasure to be meeting you once again."
I turned my head to see him once again, as white as ever, sitting on the ground like a normal human being and apparently looking at me. I looked around to see the same as ever: nothing. Not a sound, not a smell, just pure nothingness.
"Am I dead already? I thought I survived that."
He laughed, standing up quietly and coming to me with his hands behind his body like always. Looking down on me, he spoke.
"No, no, not yet. You are still alive, currently in a hospital. I summoned you here to say congratulations for surviving the first important event on this run. Some of the others weren't capable of surviving the second Nomu, but you? Oh, you did great."
"I knew I wasn't the only one inside this place. Ugh, so not only are there more simulations going on, but they died?"
"It's obvious. I can't make this world without a sacrifice, didn't I tell you? Your soul is the core of this world. Without it, not only does the world crumble to dust, but your soul dies with it."
He didn't even stutter saying that shit. Well, he was used to saying that. Who knew how many other people perished in the search of this prize? I wasn't afraid at all. I knew there was something he didn't tell me, and now that I understood, I couldn't help but smile.
After all, all I needed to do was avoid death, and with my quirk, that was easy.
"So what, are you going to keep making things more and more difficult for me? Are you scared you'll have to pay?"
"Our contract states I can modify certain parts of the main history, but only to an extent. It wouldn't be fun for me to make things easier, nor extremely hard for you. I'm bound by my own satisfaction, after all."
"Well, why did you call me? I'm waiting."
I quickly changed the topic. The Wanderer stayed quiet for a few seconds before answering.
"From now on, your quirk will start evolving a little more than usual. I also gift you a safe lock. In any case, it's your job to find out most of the new add-ons, Michael Bianco. Good luck."
Before my lips moved, the same sensation of falling invaded me. The darkness ate my body as my vision blurred. Hearing distant voices, I could easily tell my consciousness was coming back. With a blink, the darkness of this alternate dimension turned into a hospital ceiling.
"He's awake."
The voice and face of a nurse checking my ears with a light interrupted my thoughts. Man, were all girls in this world beautiful? After I stared at her eyes for a little too long, she moved away. I sat up in my hospital bed, breathing that iconic air as I looked at my surroundings.
The nurse, pretty as she was, stood in the corner of the room, writing something in a notebook. In the chair nearby and looking at me was my mother, who didn't seem very happy.
"ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY?!"
She screamed while almost jumping at me, grabbing my clothes and pushing me to the bed once again. I didn't resist her, letting her move me as she pleased in a burst of anger.
"I!"
A slap hit my left cheek.
"THOUGHT!"
A second one moved my head the other way around.
"YOU WERE DEAD!"
She finally stopped, letting me look at her for the first time. Her hair was a mess, she had new eye bags and hints of crying. With her whole body shaking, she didn't put any restraint when the nurse intervened, putting her back in the chair while speaking in whispers.
"I didn't know you cared that much about me."
My words just made her more angry, trying to start all over again, but after a quick glance from the nurse, she sat back, biting her lip.
"Sigh... I survived, didn't I? You shouldn't waste your precious time with me. Go back and take care of my grandmother. I don't need anyone to look out for me, especially you."
She stood up. On her face, the anger and shame didn't seem to hide in any way. I looked at her eyes and waited for her response. After a moment, a box was thrown at me before she left the room with a loud bang.
"You shouldn't talk to your mother like that, I..."
"Can't you mind your own business?"
The nurse seemed surprised by my almost instant answer. Upset, she also left the room. I grabbed the box. It was a brand new phone, a pretty good one too. So this was my recovery gift?
"Mm-hmm, so mine broke in the fight? A shame, I had a lot of things in that thing."
I didn't feel bad for my mother, not in the slightest. She had decades to try and bond with me and chose to ignore me because of a man I knew nothing about. That's bullshit, and if this was her attempt to be a better parent, she was missing a lot of things.
As I was trying my new cellphone, I could hear a chit-chat getting closer as shadows appeared in the window. The door opened to reveal my classmates.
"OH! You're awake?!"
"Let me see! Let me see!"
A bunch of different words flew in the air as I looked at them, clearly exasperated. After a minute, they finally calmed down, standing around the room, eyes focused on me. The first one to talk was Iida.
"Akuma, we are here to help in anything we can. You have been sleeping for 3 days, and I'm here to explain what happened after you passed out."
"The one to attack you was the monster you thought was defeated. He destroyed almost half of your body with one punch. Some of our classmates went into shock after seeing you like that, but thanks to Bakugo and Todoroki, we were able to pull you out. Izuku also helped. They restrained the... what was it called? Ah, the Nomu, yes. They fought the Nomu until the pro heroes arrived with me. The villains escaped shortly after, and All Might easily controlled the situation. The Nomu didn't put up any force after he was abandoned."
I sighed in relief. My efforts weren't in vain. I changed history for the first time. Ojiro's hand grabbed my shoulder. I noticed a different vibe than usual with these guys. As I was getting concerned, Ojiro spoke.
"Akuma... thanks... thank you for saving us."
He said with a brief smile and a soft voice. The others also thanked me, everyone in their own way, obviously. Bakugo didn't, looking away while sitting in the only chair available. Todoroki neither; he just nodded silently, and that was it.
"...Yeah... You're welcome?"
This sensation was strange to me. Never in both of my lives had I done something people thanked me for. How was this little piece of nothing affecting me so hard? I didn't think I hated it... at all.
We passed the morning talking. Izuku wasn't here because he also got hurt. After I was... mauled? He panicked and used his power to the fullest, breaking his arm once again, and suffering a lot of other smaller injuries. Bakugo was the one to take care of the lesser villains. Kirishima and Momo also helped Hero 13 while the others survived the teleportation.
This event got me closer to them, for the first time I felt part of a group, my mind spin as the laughs of them joy my day, all this new sensations are going to make me doubt at some point, but let me enjoy this even for a moment.
That afternoon, I was discharged from the hospital, letting me go after I affirmed my condition was great. Since my physiology was an anomaly to them, they chose to believe me.
The day was beautiful. The sun was setting on the horizon as air struck my face, moving my hair like waves in a gentle breeze. The clothes I was wearing were brought by my mother; she just grabbed random things from my closet, but they fit well. Since my costume was destroyed in the altercation, I didn't know how much time they would take to make me a new one, a shame since I liked that thing.
"Did you miss me?"
I said to the man waiting on a nearby bench, Karma, who was reading a book, Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. Huh, I needed to talk to him about that before anything bad happened. He was surprised to hear my voice but was quick to hide it, standing up slowly and waving at me as we walked together.
"It's time to continue with our plan. I need you to do me a favor."
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The sound of rusty metal moving was heard all along the abandoned warehouse, located around 3 miles away from my home. After wandering for a bit, I entered a separate room, where Karma was waiting for me. To his side, a man tied up to a chair was looking at me, clearly scared.
"W-who are you?!"
He asked, moving his whole body as Karma lit up an electric lamp he brought with him, clearing the room. The man he kidnapped was one of the villains from the attack on the U.S.J., to be more exact, one of whom I fought before my altercation with the Nomu began.
"You! You're that student from UA?! How did you find me?!"
"Great question. It's a long story, but since we have all the time in the world, I can give you an answer. You see..."
"As soon as we started fighting, I put inside your body a part of me, a string, incapable of doing harm to you in any way, but enough for me to know your location at any time. How? My body doesn't function in any human way. I know where parts of me are right now, I can control them at a distance and can make them perish. Pretty simple, if you ask me."
"That doesn't even make sense! Why is a kid like you searching for me?! You can't do that! It's illegal!"
I struck a quick blow to the jaw of the man. He was supposed to be a criminal, but I guess Karma showed him opposing wasn't going to make things better for me. After that, he changed his approach and started talking.
"Oh hoho, I know what you want, kid. Do you want vengeance?! You little psychopath! I'm not going to spill anything to you! So try your best, you don't know anything about life yet!"
"Mm-hmm, man, I don't want vengeance. I want you to tell me how you contacted Shigaraki, and you're going to tell me... whether you want to or not."
An hour later, the man told me everything I needed to know. Turns out, just as I thought, the League of Villains doesn't have an application forum; they have to directly contact you. I knew that, but I was hoping something would change, so now we would have to stick with the usual "Karma Vigilante" thing, but increasing the violence, now considering the whole Stain arc was about to happen.
But this wasn't a total loss. I now knew the names of those who made the calls, the scouts of Shigaraki. With that, it was pretty simple to know where and how to act to increase the probabilities of entering the team. This was a success, in a way.
I cleaned my fist as our informant spat blood from our last session. I briefly ordered Karma his next move as he leaved the room, leaving me alone as I waited for the man to talk.
"Y-you... monster... you... you aren't a hero..."
"Did you realize that now?"
"How... could... someone so young... be so... cruel..."
I was asking the same thing. This wasn't usually me, but I guess this slip was necessary. Tomorrow, I was going back to class, and I couldn't act like the man who did this shit... Ugh, focus a little, let's end this and forget about it.
"Look, this isn't personal, but you know who I am, and we know I can't let you walk away with that information."
I said as I put my body behind him.He tried to talk me out of my decision, begging for his life. I didn't answer. Instead, my eyes focused on the ceiling.
"You can't change a world without getting your hands dirty."
This was only a test for my mind. The oppression of these walls around me was killing me. I quickly did my job, and a crack was heard while the cries stopped. The body stopped moving, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
The effect on me was immediate, I fell down to my knees and tried to vomit, even though I don't have a digesting system at all, my body shaken at the sensation of death, it was strange, weirding me out of my comfort, I kept repeating the same words to me as the blood scattered around the floor, I can't doubt now, this is my a prove of my will to do what it takes for this history to end well, and I must comply.
I stand up slowly, having trouble to see my victim in that state, after a breath I do it.
With the touch of my index finger, my quirk is activated. The evidence disappeared slowly, becoming a part of my body and restoring my thread reserve as that cold chunk of organic matter was eaten bit by bit.
And in the darkness I stood, looking at the sin I just committed.