Sunlight filtered through the canopy in golden shafts, dappling the mossy floor. For the first time since teleporting, he breathed without tasting fear.
He found a small clearing ringed by towering oaks, a fallen log perfect for sitting. James sank onto it, tilting his face to the patchy sky. The fire in his veins had settled into a low, comforting hum—like a second heartbeat.
He flexed his fingers, coaxing a tiny flame to life on his thumbnail, watching it dance without scorching skin. Power. Real, intoxicating power. Maybe he could survive this world after all.
That's when the air shimmered again.
The screen materialized with its familiar blue glow, hovering at eye level like an impatient ghost.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO GAIN QUIRK: DANGER SENSE (MHA, 1 OF THE QUIRKS IN ONE FOR ALL)?
James blinked. My Hero Academia? Cross-franchise buffs now? Danger Sense—the fourth user's quirk in One For All. That tingling spider-sense that screamed when threats were near, letting Deku dodge bullets and explosions before they even fired. In a world crawling with super-speed vampires and invisible witches... yeah. That wasn't even a question.
"Yes," he said aloud, voice firm. The word felt like sealing a pact.
The screen dissolved into motes of light that sank into his skull like warm rain. A sharp buzz erupted behind his eyes—not pain, but awareness.
Every nerve lit up, mapping the clearing in hyper-detail: the squirrel twenty feet up a pine, the beetle crawling under the log, the breeze shifting leaves in patterns that suddenly made sense. Then came the baseline calm—a quiet readiness, waiting for disruption.
He stood slowly, testing it. No immediate alerts. Just peace. Grinning, he spun in a slow circle, arms out. "Come on, universe. Hit me with your best—"
The danger sense exploded.
It wasn't sound or sight. It was a full-body jolt, like every hair standing on end while his brain screamed DUCK LEFT NOW. James threw himself sideways without thinking, shoulder rolling across moss as something blurred past his ear—fast enough to slice air.
Five figures materialized in a loose circle around the clearing, having dropped from the trees like predators. Vampires. Older than the alley pair, judging by the controlled menace in their stances.
Leather jackets, tactical boots, eyes veined black with hunger and rage. Daylight rings glinted on every hand. The leader—a woman with platinum hair pulled into a severe ponytail—tilted her head, fangs bared.
"Word travels fast in the tombs," she said, voice velvet over steel. "Two of ours reduced to barbecue in broad daylight. By a human." Her gaze raked him, dismissive. "You reek of smoke and fear, boy. We'll make this slow."
The others fanned out—two males with shaved heads and prison tattoos, a wiry woman with a scar across her throat, and a lanky guy whose grin showed too many teeth. All moving in practiced formation, herding him toward the center.
James's heart hammered, but the danger sense painted the world in crystal clarity. Threat vectors glowed in his mind like red threads: Platinum aiming for his throat in 1.2 seconds, Scar-Throat circling for a leg sweep, Lanky preparing a blur-tackle from behind. He could see their intents before muscles twitched.
He dodged the first lunge on pure instinct—Platinum's claws whistling through empty air where his neck had been. The danger sense pinged again: behind, low.
He spun, dropping into a crouch as Lanky's kick sailed overhead, close enough to ruffle his hair.
"Hold still," one of the shaved heads growled, blurring forward.
James let the fire answer.
It surged from his palms in twin gouts, not wild blasts but precise lances shaped by fury and newfound precision. The danger sense fed him angles—where to aim so the flames would catch leather and flesh without wasting heat on empty air.
The first lance punched through Shaved Head One's shoulder, igniting fabric and muscle in a blooming flower of agony. The vampire shrieked, staggering as the fire burrowed deeper, seeking bone.
Scar-Throat came from the side—danger sense screamed right, claws high. James pivoted, dodging by inches, and retaliated with a whip of flame that wrapped her extended arm like a lasso. He yanked mentally, imagination fueling the burn.
The whip tightened, searing through jacket and skin, cauterizing as it went. She howled, trying to rip free, but the flames clung, chewing down to tendon and bone in deliberate, grinding layers. Her scream pitched higher as the fire reached nerves, a sound like tearing metal.
Platinum snarled, coordinating the others. "Pin him!"
The remaining three attacked in concert—blurs of motion that would have overwhelmed him yesterday. But Danger Sense turned the chaos into choreography. Left high, mid low, right feint-then-strike.
James flowed between them, body moving before conscious thought, fire blooming in his wake.
He caught Lanky mid-leap with a fireball to the chest—compact, dense, exploding on impact like napalm. The vampire hit the ground writhing, flames spreading across his torso in hungry waves.
James didn't let up; he imagined the fire tunneling inward, boiling blood, flash-cooking organs. Lanky's thrashing slowed to spasms, mouth working soundlessly as smoke poured from his eyes.
Shaved Head Two grabbed James from behind—danger sense had warned, but he let it happen, timing perfect. Arms locked around his waist, vamp fangs seeking jugular.
James slammed his head back, breaking nose cartilage, then flooded his skin with heat. Not surface burns—deep, penetrating. The vampire's grip spasmed as his arms blistered from the inside out, muscle cooking against James's ribs.
He twisted free, turning to face the monster whose forearms now dripped liquefied flesh. A final gesture: a spike of flame through the open mouth, down the throat, igniting lungs like paper. The body dropped, convulsing in silent, steaming death.
Platinum was last. She hung back, calculating, but rage overrode caution. She blurred straight at him—fastest yet. Danger Sense shrieked direct frontal, lethal intent. James met her halfway.
They collided in a tangle of speed and fire. Her claws raked his side—shallow, thanks to the warning twitch that turned fatal into glancing. He pressed his palm to her chest, right over the heart. "You wanted slow," he whispered.
The fire poured in—not explosive, but insidious. A creeping inferno that started as warmth, then agony, spreading through her ribcage like molten lead.
She froze, eyes wide, realizing too late.
James shaped it with cruel precision: flames licking each chamber of her heart, searing valves, carbonizing tissue millimeter by millimeter.
Her body arched, mouth open in a silent scream as the organ cooked in its cage. He held her there, suspended by will alone, watching veins blacken under pale skin, daylight ring melting into her finger like a brand.
When he released her, she crumpled—smoking husk collapsing into ash that scattered on the forest breeze.
Silence rushed in, broken only by his ragged breathing. Five bodies—or what remained—lay scattered across the clearing, the air thick with the stench of burnt meat and ozone.
James stumbled back against a tree, sliding down until he sat in the moss. His side stung—blood soaking his shirt—but the wounds were superficial. Danger Sense had saved him. Fire had ended them.
He laughed once, a broken sound. Painfully. That was the request, wasn't it? And he'd delivered—slow, deliberate, letting them feel every second. The forest seemed to watch, ancient and indifferent.
The sun dipped lower, painting the carnage in orange light. James forced himself up, wiping blood from his ribs. Cleanup wasn't his problem; animals or compelled humans would handle it.
He had bigger concerns—like why five vampires had come gunning for him so fast. Word traveled, Platinum said. Someone was paying attention.
As he limped toward the trail back to town, the new quirk hummed quietly—no immediate threats. Just the steady thrum of survival. Two gifts now: fire and foresight. The screen hadn't appeared again, but he felt its promise lingering, patient.