One week.
Seven days of the same routine. Wake up, school, train, sleep, repeat.
Rei was getting stronger. He could feel it in the way his body moved, the way his Quirk responded. The forest clearing had become his second home, and the trees bore the marks of his training—scuff marks from wall-running, webbing residue on branches, disturbed earth from impact landings.
But something was bothering him.
It was Friday night, 11:47 PM, and Rei sat on his apartment roof, legs dangling over the edge. The city spread out before him, lights twinkling in the darkness. Somewhere out there, heroes were patrolling. Villains were plotting. Life was happening.
And he was just... training.
'Is this enough?' The thought had been nagging him all week. 'Training in an empty forest against imaginary threats?'
In his previous life, training had always been supplemented with real experience. You couldn't truly learn to kill by hitting practice dummies. You had to do it. Feel the resistance. Handle the consequences. Adapt to chaos.
'But I'm not trying to learn how to kill anymore.' Rei watched a hero fly past in the distance, probably on night patrol. 'I'm trying to learn how to save people.'
The problem was, he didn't know how.
Assassin work was clean. Eliminate target, collect payment, disappear. Simple. Efficient. No variables beyond success or failure.
Hero work? That was messy. Civilians to protect. Property damage to minimize. Laws to follow. Public image to maintain.
'I need experience.' Rei stood up, balancing easily on the roof's edge. 'Real experience. Not just training.'
The idea had been forming all week, pushed down because it felt dangerous. Reckless. But tonight, it crystallized into certainty.
He needed to go out there. Test himself. See what he could actually do in a real situation.
'Not as a hero,' Rei thought. 'Not yet. Just... observation. Maybe help if something comes up. Stay in the shadows.'
He looked down at his clothes. Black tracksuit, the same one he'd been training in. Dark enough to blend into shadows. Practical enough to move in.
'Good enough for now.'
Rei took a breath and made his decision.
He stepped off the roof.
For a split second, gravity grabbed him. Then his hand shot out, webbing attaching to the building across the street. The line went taut, and his trajectory changed from falling to swinging.
The city blurred around him.
Wind rushed past his face as he swung between buildings, the webbing dissolving behind him as he released and fired new lines. His enhanced senses tracked everything—the distance to the next building, the angle of his swing, the structural integrity of his anchor points.
It was exhilarating.
'This,' Rei thought as he flipped over a rooftop, 'this is what the Quirk was made for.'
Not walking up walls in a forest. Not lifting boulders. This. Movement through three-dimensional space like gravity was a suggestion rather than a rule.
He swung through the business district, staying high above street level. Down below, late-night crowds moved between bars and restaurants. Normal people living normal lives.
No crime. No villains. Just... peace.
'Maybe this was a bad idea.' Rei landed on a water tower, crouching on top of it to survey the area. 'What did I expect? To immediately run into trouble?'
This wasn't a movie. Crime didn't just happen conveniently when you went looking for it.
Rei was about to call it a night when he heard it.
Shouting. Angry voices. The crash of metal.
His enhanced hearing zeroed in on the source—three blocks east, in an alley between two closed shops.
'There we go.'
Rei fired a web line and swung toward the sound, landing silently on a rooftop overlooking the alley.
Below, four men surrounded a fifth. The four were big, dressed in dark clothes, their body language aggressive. The fifth was smaller, wearing a convenience store uniform, backed against a dumpster.
"I already gave you the money!" The clerk's voice shook. "That's all we had in the register!"
"Not enough." One of the thugs cracked his knuckles. "We know you got a safe in the back. Give the Code. Right Now!."
"I don't—I don't have it! Only the manager—"
The thug's fist lit up with fire.
Quirk.
"Last chance, buddy. Code, or we see how fireproof you really are."
Rei's body moved on instinct, decades of combat training overriding conscious thought.
He dropped into the alley silently, landing in a crouch behind the thugs. None of them noticed.
'Four targets. One with a fire Quirk. Unknown abilities on the others. Civilian in the line of fire.'
The tactical assessment took half a second.
'Disable the fire user first. Then the others. Non-lethal. Make it fast.'
Rei moved.
He closed the distance in two steps and delivered a palm strike to the fire user's kidney. The man gasped, his flame quirk sputtering out as pain shot through his body. Before he could react, Rei webbed his hands together and yanked him backward into the dumpster with a resounding clang.
One down.
The other three thugs spun around, finally noticing the intruder.
"What the—"
Rei didn't let them finish. He shot webbing at the second thug's face, covering his eyes. The man stumbled backward, clawing at the sticky substance.
Two down.
The third thug lunged forward, his arms suddenly elongating—another Quirk. Extended reach, probably enhanced strength.
Dangerous.
Rei ducked under the swing, planted his hands on the ground, and swept the thug's legs with a spinning kick. The man crashed down hard. Rei webbed his elongated arms to the alley floor before he could get up.
Three down.
The fourth thug—the only one without a visible Quirk so far—pulled out a knife.
'Of course.'
"Stay back!" The thug waved the knife wildly. "I'll cut you, man! I swear I'll—"
Rei fired webbing at the knife, yanked it out of the thug's hand, then shot another web at the man's chest and pulled him forward into a raised knee. The thug folded, gasping for air.
Rei webbed him to the alley wall and stepped back.
Four thugs down. Total time: maybe eight seconds.
The clerk stood frozen against the dumpster, eyes wide, mouth open.
Rei looked at him for a moment, then at the webbed-up criminals groaning on the ground.
'Now what?'
In his previous life, this was where he'd disappear. Job done, no witnesses, ghost in the wind.
But this wasn't an assassination. This was... what? A rescue? Vigilante justice?
'Say something,' Rei's mind urged. 'Heroes say something reassuring, right?'
"You good?" Rei's voice came out flat, emotionless.
The clerk nodded frantically, still too shocked to speak.
"Police station is two blocks north. Go."
The clerk didn't need to be told twice. He scrambled out of the alley and ran.
Rei looked at the four thugs. The webbing would last for about an hour before dissolving. Plenty of time for the clerk to get help, for the police to arrive.
'Mission accomplished, I guess.'
He fired a web line at the nearest rooftop and pulled himself up, disappearing into the darkness before any of the thugs could get a good look at him.
Back on the rooftops, Rei's heart was pounding. Not from exertion—the fight had barely taxed him. From adrenaline. From the rush of real combat.
'That was...' He ran across a rooftop and leaped to the next one. 'That was easy. Way too easy.'
Four guys, two with Quirks, and he'd taken them down like they were training dummies. His assassin training combined with his Spider Quirk made him dangerous. Way more dangerous than some street thugs.
'Is this what it's going to be like?' Rei swung between buildings, heading back toward his apartment. 'Am I that much stronger than normal criminals?'
It was a sobering thought. Power like this, experience like his—he could do a lot of damage if he wanted to.
Or a lot of good.
'One data point,' Rei reminded himself. 'One fight. Don't get cocky. There are way scarier things out there than street thugs.'
But still, as he landed on his apartment building's roof, he couldn't help the small smile on his face.
His first real fight in this world.
His first time using his powers to help someone.
It felt... different. Better than the empty satisfaction of completed contracts in his old life.
'Maybe I can do this,' Rei thought as he climbed down to his apartment window. 'Maybe I can actually be something other than a killer.'
The night was quiet again. The city peaceful.
And somewhere in an alley, four criminals were webbed to walls, wondering what the hell had just hit them.
-----
Author's Note:-
Rei's first real fight, and he's starting to see what he can do. But this is just the beginning...
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