….
[Six Months Later]
….
[U.A - Evening]
The sun was beginning to bleed out over Musutafu, turning the pristine glass windows of the U.A. staff lounge into sheets of orange fire.
Inside, the air was heavy with the specific, quiet hum of a school after the students have gone - settling of the building with empty corridors.
All the while, Jin-Ho focused on the papers spread across his table - though these weren't lesson plans - in fact none of it belonged to his job as assistant professor.
"Looking at all this..." He picked up a sheet. "It really feels like I am trying to play Hero for real."
The ceramic clink of a plate hitting the table made him jump.
"You hold the tension in your shoulders–
A cheerful, muffled voice noted. "Bad for digestion."
Jin-Ho looked up to see Lunch Rush standing there. The Cook Hero was still in full costume, though he looked as tired as Jin-Ho felt.
He slid a plate of freshly steamed onigiri forward.
"Long day?" Lunch Rush asked, taking the seat opposite him.
"You have no idea." Jin-Ho exhaled, reaching for a rice ball without hesitation. The warmth seeped into his fingers. "Thanks. Seriously."
They ate in a comfortable silence for a moment. In the hierarchy of U.A.'s experienced teaching staff - where Jin-Ho and Lunch Rush occupied a strange middle ground.
They were the newcomers. The rookies.
While the veteran teachers often looked at Jin-Ho like a cipher they couldn't quite crack, Lunch Rush had just offered him food.
That was the universal language.
"Don't stay too late." Lunch Rush said, standing up and dusting crumbs from his apron. "Even heroes need sleep. Especially the ones teaching the next generation."
"I will head out soon." Jin-Ho lied.
"See that you do."
With a wave, the Cook Hero slipped out the door, leaving Jin-Ho alone with the setting sun and the cooling tea.
He leaned back, the leather of the sofa creaking under his weight. He stared at the dust motes floating in the beams of dying light.
One and a half years.
Eighteen months surviving in this world - while walking through a city he had read from manga panels and anime frames.
Honestly, the novelty had worn off about six months ago, and now it was completely replaced by the harsh reality of this dark world - hidden behind Heroes.
He had been an assistant teacher here for half a year.
He still wasn't entirely sure how he had managed to convince Principal Nezu to hire him.
But I am here, he thought, his gaze drifting to the window.
Below, the campus was peaceful. There were no reporters at the gate. No alarms blaring.
It was eight years too early.
Eight years before a nervous, green-haired boy would trip over his own feet at the entrance, and the USJ incident that would shatter the peace.
…Before the shadow of All For One would stretch long enough to crush this society and peace.
The timeline was a ticking clock and only he knew.
"Not like I care about the timeline to begin with."
If he cared about the butterfly effect, he wouldn't have touched a single one from these files, which he already did.
The biggest deviation lay right at the top of his mental list:
Toya Todoroki.
By all rights, the boy should be on a one-way path to becoming Dabi, a brunt skeleton held together by staples and hate, burning himself alive just to spite his father.
Now? Jin-Ho liked to believe that had managed to redirect that path.
I mean, Toya is still volatile, sure, but he wasn't a ghost story yet. He reassured himself.
…and obviously there is–
Giran.
The broker had been surprisingly simple.
The criminal underworld runs on risk and reward, and Jin-Ho simply offered better rewards with significantly less risk.
A steady paycheck and protection from the lunatics he usually dealt with?
Giran signed up without a second thought.
And evidently, if there is anyone who knows more about Jin-Ho - then it is him.
And despite that, in the perspective of Giran he still doesn't know much about Jin-Ho - for the once teenager too dangerous and mysterious with multiple quirks and most importantly unknown origins.
Giran isn't dumb, he had done his background check on the kid right after their first meeting, however, he couldn't find a thing about him.
It was like, he decided to appear in this would out of nowhere - which he really did.
Anyways, for Giran, Jin-Ho is simply too dangerous to make an enemy and decided it was better to work for him.
And overtime, the underworld's news is fed directly into Jin-Ho's ear.
"Honestly, dude's network of contacts and talent for gathering information skills are top notch." Jin-Ho evaluated, with pure admiration.
I mean, half his plans would have failed if it wasn't for Giran.
With that, he moved onto next–
"Now that I think about it..." He tapped a finger against the table–
"Stain was definitely the headache."
Chizome Akaguro. The Hero Killer.
Undoubtedly, Stain, with his strong beliefs of heroism - extreme, but rooted in something real - was the toughest for him to get through.
Still though, the man was a fanatic, but he wasn't stupid. He had looked Jin-Ho in the eye and seen the truth immediately:
You aren't a hero.
Stain wasn't wrong.
Jin-Ho wasn't All Might.
At least, that's what he believed.
He isn't the self-sacrificing, selfless, symbol-of-hope kind of way.
Paradoxically, that honesty was what worked.
More than his beliefs, Stain despised hypocrites - heroes who pretended to be altruistic while chasing fame.
And as one would guess, Jin-Ho didn't pretend to be anything other than what he was. So yeah despite all this, somehow, in the end, he managed to bring Stain into the fold.
"Guess I have got some charm after all." he muttered, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth–
"But Twice?
"Jin Bubaigawara? He was the easiest. The poor guy just needed to be friends with."
That made four.
Four major people were diverted off their paths.
"That should get my Synchronization Rate up nicely."
He closed his eyes, calling up the interface that only he could see.
◤-----------------------◥
[[Portal 002] (Updated)
- World Assigned: MCU
- Synchronization Rate: 10%]
….
[Note: When world synchronization reaches 100%, the host may freely travel to this world - the rate depends on your influence on the world.]
◣-----------------------◢
Three months in MCU, he hadn't changed much, just saved a life.
Even so, it earned him 10%.
"Makes me wonder what the payout is for this place once I leave." he mused, opening his eyes to the dim lounge.
The goal was 100%. Full synchronization meant he could return to a world whenever he pleased.
Useful. Very useful, in fact.
It was a passport to the multiverse, and that freedom was worth more than any hero ranking.
That was one reason he was involving himself in so much, and planning to do so too.
But is that the only reason?
Hm, not entirely. Even without the system, his actions likely would have followed a similar path.
He is too greedy to not make use of something that will make his life easy in future, even if it is too much of a bother for now.
"I don't mind playing the good guy." he said, the admission quiet. "As long as it doesn't cost me too much."
He sighed, the sound heavy with frustration–
"But man... if only I had found that one 'kid' I missed, I probably would have hit 100% already."
Tenko Shimura.
Or, Tomura Shigaraki–
His expression darkened immediately.
He knew the history.
He knew that All For One had orchestrated the tragedy that killed the Shimura family, swooping in to 'save' the traumatized five-year-old.
All that, just to create a chess piece for, who he called him as his - successor - which is nothing but a curse.
Again, it was too late.
When he cross verified with Giran, that incident happened similar to the plot - eight years ago.
Jin-Ho only arrived in this world eighteen months ago.
It was simply impossibly late - where the kid had already been rotting under All For One's thumb for over six years.
For six years, the boy had been shaped and molded into a living weapon aimed at destroying everything All Might stood for.
Eight years of psychological manipulation, of careful cultivation of hatred, of strategic isolation from anything resembling normal human connection.
"I was too late."
He gave up. It wasn't for lack of trying.
For the last six months, he had burned every resource he had.
Giran was listening to every whisper in the gutters.
Nothing. Not a single solid lead
Jin-Ho tapped a finger against the empty space on the desk where a report on the "Symbol of Evil" should have been.
Even Blacky, had come back empty-handed.
And that was saying something.
The shadow entity had spent months sliding through the cracks of the criminal underworld, infiltrating syndicates, and listening in rooms where no one else could hide.
All For One wasn't just hiding.
He was non-existent.
For Giran, the situation was even weirder. Within a year, he met two people who could appear and leave without a trace.
Still, All For One is in another league.
The man had spent centuries perfecting the art of invisibility.
Jin-Ho understood this.
He wouldn't be found until he decided it was time to be found - specifically, two years from now.
That was the time frame etched in Jin-Ho's mental calendar.
The day All For One would bait All Might into their first cataclysmic showdown, that would reshape the hero society of Japan.
A battle that would leave the villain broken, on life support, and ostensibly defeated - but he still manages to survive and go into hiding again.
But that's the trap, Jin-Ho thought, grimacing. Even his defeat is a chess move.
That was the terrifying reality of dealing with the man.
Losing his face and his body was just the cost of doing business for All For One, a necessary sacrifice to lull the world into complacency while he groomed a successor from the shadows.
He built contingencies inside contingencies.
He was playing a game that spanned decades, while everyone else was struggling to survive the week.
That was the level of opponent this world will be dealing with, someone who thought in terms of centuries, who saw people as chess pieces to be sacrificed in service of grand designs.
Jin-Ho rubbed his temples, feeling a headache pulsing behind his eyes. Trying to outmaneuver a centuries-old mastermind with only eighteen months of prep time was an exercise in futility.
"Yeah, not the current me's problem." He muttered, physically waving the thought away.
He could push the logistics aside, but, if there is one thing he is certain after spending the eighteen months he spent in this world is that–
There is garden-variety evil in this world:
Villains, murderers, thieves, and many more scums. And then, on the other side of the spectrum, there was:
All For One.
To simply call that thing 'evil' felt like a gross oversimplification, almost an insult to the word itself. It was a malignancy that had metastasized into the very bones of society.
"He needs to be killed."
He let that dark thought hang in the air for a moment before forcefully exhaling, pushing the phantom of the faceless man away to focus on a tragedy he could actually see.
"Now... the Vampire girl. Himiko Toga."
He picked up the attached photograph.
.
….
[To be continued…]
★─────⇌•★•⇋─────★
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