Haruka's Onryō

Episode 8, a.k.a. Loss of Faith

Part 8 of the Dark Beginnings Arc

JACOB CRUZ

Let's make something clear here.

Denise and I never really had faith in pro heroes.

They didn't come to save us from all the people who decided that being quirkless was an unforgivable crime against quirk users.

If that wasn't enough, from what we learned about Endeavor and Crimson Riot... Japan was about to have one hell of a rude awakening.

The tens of articles and blogs I read in the week leading up to our flight pointed to the country's culture placing almost unlimited faith in its pro heroes and hero school students. It already came to the point that countless films, TV series, books, mangas, and anime have been made about them.

To say that it's absolutely mind-bending is the understatement of this millennium.

In fact, some of the more attentive bloggers hypothesized that if too many cracks in Japan's pro hero system were to be revealed in a short period of time, it would begin to crumble.

A few minutes after Crimson Riot, Denki, and Eijiro went their separate ways, the six of us were beginning to see the effects of that crumbling.

We were about to walk into Game Station when something on Yosetsu's phone caught his attention so much that he almost crashed into Itsuka's back.

"My apologies for almost running into you... but it seems that people have already lost their faith in Endeavor."

Upon gathering around his phone out of curiosity, we noticed that it was a live stream being taken outside of the skyscraper housing Endeavor's agency, where no less than hundreds of people were holding up all sorts of signs with pictures and words condemning the now-disgraced pro hero.

They were also chanting "Convict Endeavor now!" over and over again, with their collective volume being a couple of decibels from rivaling how loud Present Mic can be.

However, what really caught our attention was that a brown-eyed guy with spiky pink hair had somehow gotten the police's permission to stand behind the barricade that had been set up around the agency. He was holding up a sign which gave voice to his support of Endeavor and pro heroes in general... with quite a few in the anti-Endeavor crowd shouting some rather sickening things at him.

Itsuka watched the whole thing with clear disapproval. "I know he did lots of bad stuff, but do he or his fans deserve this much hate?"

Before I could even think through what I wanted to say, my mouth did the talking for me.

"I say his fans don't deserve the hate, but Endeavor himself? He deserves every last bit of it."

Once again, everyone else's eyes were on me as though I had triggered the end of the world.

"What is it now? I'm just expressing my honest opinion."

Hitoshi's sarcastic vibe quickly showed itself. "Sure. It's not like an honest opinion isn't food flapping around in the breeze that's free for all predators to munch down on."

"That may be true, Hitoshi, but I also don't want to lie to myself about how I feel, you know?"

"You both have a point." This time, it was Neito who was speaking up. "We all have such opinions on this burgeoning crisis for the hero world. Endeavor and Crimson Riot are clearly untrustworthy, so people are going to start questioning just how many pro heroes can actually be relied on. It could be that even in death, Haruka's ideology remains similar to Stain's... not that it matters if it's true since all she wants is Musutafu's suffering."