MHA: A Hero’s Genesis

Haruto stood patiently in line at the supermarket, his arms loaded with groceries. The soft hum of background chatter filled the air, but his mind was elsewhere. He pondered the potential of blending carbon nanofiber into winter jackets for added protection—a project he'd started ever since the industrial printer he ordered arrived three months ago. The line shuffled forward, and soon it was his turn at the counter.

The cashier, a cheerful woman in her late twenties, scanned his items and beamed at him. "You look so cute in that All Might mask! A little hero in the making, huh?"

Haruto, wearing a full-face All Might mask, gave a polite nod, his face hidden beneath the mask. Though he didn't respond verbally, a slight blush crept across his cheeks. Gathering his groceries quickly, he exited the store and stepped into the brisk winter air.

To most, Haruto's choice of mask seemed like a tribute to the beloved hero from another young fan, but in reality, it served a deeper purpose. Beneath the mask, Haruto was actively using his quirk, Black Morph, to enhance his senses. The mask concealed the subtle changes to his face and eyes, allowing him to refine his ability to separate and focus on specific sensory inputs without drawing attention. The inspiration for this was, a memory he saw in other person's life, where a superhero named Superman would practice this ability to find where trouble was, faster than others could.

As he walked down the street, the cold biting at his skin, a faint metallic scent caught his heightened senses. Blood. Paired with the muffled sound of struggle, it was clear something was wrong. Haruto's head snapped toward a nearby alley. Zeroing in on the source, he quickly made his way there.

In the narrow alley where light barely penetrated, he found a woman collapsed on the ground. She appeared and smelled drugged, her movements sluggish and disoriented. Her leg bled from a deep gash, and her face bore the marks of a recent assault. Clutched tightly in her trembling hands was a small, tattered blanket. Her lips moved weakly, fragments of words slipping out. "Sakura… my daughter… please."

Haruto's mind raced, piecing the situation together. The woman's daughter had likely been kidnapped, and the perpetrators had drugged her to keep her subdued. His priority was clear: ensure the woman's safety and call for help.

First, he needed to address her injuries. Leaving her side briefly, he ran to a nearby pharmacy and purchased antiseptic cream, bandages, and painkillers using his allowance. Returning swiftly, he cleaned the wound with care and wrapped it tightly. "Aunty, can you hear me? I've stopped the bleeding," he said softly.

Her eyes fluttered open momentarily. "They'll… take her away forever," she murmured, her voice filled with despair.

Haruto's resolve hardened. He checked her purse for an ID, which he found buried below other things. He picked up her phone and dialed the police. "There's an injured woman named Kagura Isshin, age 33, in the alley near Kuro Street. She's bleeding and drugged, and her daughter has been kidnapped. Please send help immediately." He changed his voice to remain anonymous.

He hung up and placed the phone back beside her. Though the safest option was to stay with her until the authorities arrived, her repeated pleas left no doubt in his mind: time was of the essence. "I will help find her," he promised, his voice steady.

Taking the scent of the child from the blanket, Haruto activated his quirk, channeling it to enhance his lungs, legs, and nose to their maximum capacity. He raced through the streets, leaping over obstacles and cutting through alleys in a straight line. At a speed of 60 km/h, it took him only 15 minutes to reach the outskirts of the city, where the faint trail led to an abandoned building.

Crouching behind bushes, Haruto shifted the application of his quirk entirely to his head. His senses sharpened exponentially and his brain worked faster and better, allowing him to assess the situation. Nine individuals occupied the building: six adults and three children. The children, huddled together in fear, confined to a small room. He could smell their stress hormones and hear prayers for help. Among them was the smell of the kidnapped girl. So, probably other children were also kidnapped.

The six adults were spread across the building. Two guarded the room, where children were on the ground floor, while the remaining four were upstairs, hurriedly packing belongings. Haruto's enhanced senses identified their weapons—three carried steel weapons smelling like iron, two were probably pistols, at least from the smell of gunpowder, and the last, a mutant quirk user, appeared unarmed but physically imposing and had different physiology, giving different sounds and smells.

Haruto formulated a plan. Using the woman's phone, he called the police again with a changed voice, providing precise details about the location, the criminals, their weapons, and the children. After ending the call, he switched off both his and the woman's phones to avoid making accidental sounds in the upcoming activity. He then hid his phone and groceries in the bushes.

Moving stealthily, Haruto approached the vehicles. He punctured the tires of the first car with sharp rocks he found and wedged large rocks under the wheels, to prevent any movement. As he made his way to the second car, a voice from above alerted the criminals. "Boss, there's a kid messing with the cars!"

Haruto sighed. His attempt at subtlety had failed. From their conversation, he deduced that a sensing quirk user had detected his presence, as that person was the only one to identify him. The boss, the mutant quirk user, ordered the sensing man and another armed with a gun to investigate. He wanted to avoid this scenario, and that's why he took his current approach. He was not sure what was the fighting capacity of the six criminals and what quirks they had.

Haruto adjusted his plan. Once he was in the view of the two, who came to subdue him, he lured the two men into another nearby abandoned building, running, while pretending to be a frightened child. Upon reaching the first floor, he crouched in one of the rooms, waiting, making his body posture so that the sensing quirk guy would think Haruto was scared, while in actuality, underneath his clothes he had applied his quirk to all four limbs at max current capacity, as he was reaching the time limits of surface area and enhancement he could apply after his continuous usage of quirk from the time, he met the Kagura. When the sensing quirk user entered, knife in hand, with a carefree attitude, Haruto struck with precision. He launched himself forward, landing a powerful uppercut that knocked the man unconscious.

As the knife slipped from the man's grasp, Haruto snatched it and hurled it at the second attacker, piercing his gun hand. The weapon clattered to the floor. Seizing the moment, while the man was kneeling on the floor due to pain, Haruto delivered an axe kick to the man's head, rendering him unconscious too.

Though victorious, Haruto felt a pang of unease. This was the first time he had caused serious harm to others, giving him the feeling that he was doing something wrong. Shaking off the doubt, as it was useless in his current state, he tied up the two criminals with scraps of fabric lying nearby and gagged them to prevent noise. 

To ensure they couldn't retaliate after gaining consciousness back, after some deliberation, he broke their limbs, muffling their screams with the gags. The breaks were clean, ensuring they could heal back without any major side effects. After resting for a couple of minutes, his adrenaline from the fight wore off, leaving him with a clear head. Though he felt guilty about breaking their limbs, he adjusted himself, removed the bullets from the pistol, and took the knife with him.

To sow confusion among them, and officers who will interrogate he declared, "All Might's blood runs in my veins" before retreating. While it may create some confusion initially, after some time they will connect the mask and super strength, giving credibility to his statement, while making sure the direction of investigation about him will be skewed.

With their weapons confiscated, Haruto returned to the ground floor. Here he reapplied his quirk to his face, upon which he could hear some cars moving in the distance and the sound of police radios. Realising the police were nearby, Haruto chose to disable the other car and then hide. Another sound he heard was the criminal boss complaining, "Why it's taking so long for them to subdue a child?".

While ignoring the second complaint, he silently approached the second car, slashed its tires, and placed the woman's phone inside, to make sure no one could track him with the number or phone. Hearing the approach of police cars nearby, he hid among the bushes, where he kept his phone and groceries to observe.

The police surrounded the building, demanding the criminals' surrender. Initially compliant, the four kidnappers realized that fighting could result in death, so they released the children, 2 girls, and a boy, before coming out with their arms raised up. Everything seemed to go smoothly until, one kidnapper attempted to use a child as a human shield, pointing a gun at the child's head. Disgusted and disappointed at the man, Haruto decided to intervene. Moving further back from his concealed position, he threw the knife in a precise arc, so that it landed on the man's gun hand from the top, disarming the man without revealing his location. Once free, the boy ran to the police and they arrested the last guy too.

With the children secured and the criminals apprehended, Haruto slipped away unnoticed with his groceries, blending into the shadows to avoid attention and being caught. His heart pounded, not only from exertion but from the weight of the night's events. Later, he knew, would bring much to reflect upon.