❝The world is merciless, and it's also very beautiful.❞
For years she'd suffered, under the bitter rain as it washed away the blood, under the scorching sun as it charred her wounds - for nature had fallen prey to the destructive march of the Allie...
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❝ But can we face the truth? ❞
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Aizawa Shouta was not an irrational man.
His reputation as a skilled underground Pro Hero was built on the edifice of logic and rationality. Over the years he had sharpened his instincts on which he came to rely a lot in his career. As a Pro, he did his best to cover up any chink in his armour.
But he was also well-aware of his shortcomings as a human being.
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Vlad and Aizawa were scheduled to visit the shopping mall together to make arrangements for today's exercise. However, plans changed at the last minute with three of Aizawa's students getting embroiled in the Hero Killer controversy and Vlad ended up going alone.
Arrangements were made smoothly and he conveyed the details of the meeting to Aizawa.
"The manager, Nishikawa Fumio, and seven other employees agreed to partake in the training exercise. He has this weird fluffy white hair with two horns and blue eyes. Kind of reminded me of Pony from my class. Maybe he's a foreigner as well. He has this gentle aura around him and looked as if he wouldn't hurt a fly."
The man fit the description perfectly. And as far as Aizawa saw, there was no deviation from the other details as well. All the staff members were present for the training.
But he could not understand the strange churning feeling in his stomach. Was it because the details of the case weighed heavily on his mind? The puzzling clues, the strange command of only "fatally injuring" the victim, and the bizarre appearance and disappearance of the good Samaritan.
Or was he uneasy because they were at the very same place where a capable Pro Hero was attacked? Or was he anxious because the culprit behind the second attack — the one who knocked out the criminal — was still at large, completely unidentified?
He watched as Nishikawa Fumio led down his students a shadowy path, away from the bright morning sunlight, past an artificial garden filled with Pro Hero plushies. And as he watched his students react with a chorus of genuine "Oohs!" and "Wows!", he made his choice.
He pushed down the deep sense of foreboding and followed his students inside.
He had a job to do.
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"Alright, here's what we'll be doing today," he began. "Rescue and evacuation often involve places you're not familiar with. Perhaps buildings you've never visited or locations you aren't familiar with. And more often than not, during the earliest minutes of the disaster, you're usually alone or with a small team of heroes to evacuate the area before help arrives.
