47 Chapter 47

*Crackle*

"Phantasm is not in UA campus!"

*Crackle*

"What?! I specifically ordered you and your men to keep an eye on him! He just recovered from the blast! How could you lose him so quickly?! Find him!!"

*Crackle*

"Find him?! He could be anywhere in the country! Don't you fucking know his abilites by now?!"

As the security team from the Hero Association scrambled to find me, I was back at the site of the explosion. The scene was burned into my memory. Despite all the cleaning done, I could tell the exact place of my siblings' demise.

It immediately soured my nose, and tears poured down my eyes. I was in immense grief.

'To kill me... They chose to use my family.'

I didn't drown myself in depression. I had matured enough to understand. But that didn't mean I wasn't affected. The grief was so much that I hadn't been able to eat anything for three days, and there were dozens of empty bottles of saké in my room.

A total of four corpses were found as a result of the bomb blast. Two were of my brother and sister. While the other two were of my mother and father.

There was no trace of my uncle Lithoba in the remains, and he hadn't even tried to make contact with me. I tried numerous times to call on his number, but I had failed in doing so.

It prompted me to come to two conclusions. Either he was blown to smithereens, and his body was too damaged to be recognized even with DNA, or he was the one who planted the bomb in the house.

I didn't want to imagine the latter to be a possibility. But I couldn't ignore the facts.

I had lost my entire family, and Lithoba had made that happen.

Words weren't enough to describe the simmering rage within me. He was my father's blood brother, and he had thrown everything away, for what?

I kneeled down to touch the faint red stains on the scorched pavement. I choked up as I recalled their smiling faces just before the blast.

"Phantasm!!"

Anger mixed in with grief, I got up and looked at the person who had called out my hero name.

"What?"

"Y-You were ordered to stay in U.A. campus! Why did you leave?! This is insubordination!"

I slowly walked towards the man, glaring into his eyes, and said, "The only reason I haven't gone rogue is because I know it wasn't the Association. It's your fucking job to provide protection to our families. But I don't expect much from you. I'm going back to the field, and I'm going to talk to Nezu to hammer some sense into your dunderhead brains."

As I began to walk away, he yelled, "W-Wait! Now, don't do something stupid!"

I turned my head to glare at him and said, "Stupid? I guess wars are stupid."

"W-War?"

"I'm entering the personal war against all the crime organizations in this country. They started it, and now I will put an end to every single one of them."

(APIBNHA)

[Provisional Hero Phantasm was the target.

Recent reports are saying that Phantasm, the up and coming hero who fought side by side with All Might in the Kamino ward incident, was the target behind the bomb blast in Aichi Prefacture, that took the lives his family.

Phantasm was the one farthest away from the epicenter and managed to survive. Sadly, his two young siblings and his parents do not share the same fate.

In a gross negligence on part of the Hero Association, the provisional hero lost the lives of his entire family in a single day. This incident paints a picture of giant cracks in the surveillance system of the Hero Association.

What does this mean for all the other hero students in Japan?

Are your families safe?

How can heroes do their job when their families are always at risk of being targeted by the villains?

Learn more about Phantasm on page 15...]

The Director of Hero Association read the news with a grim realization. It was his idea to limit Phantasm's movements as a way to protect the young hero. He had thought that Phantasm was too young and wouldn't be able to handle the pressure of being constantly under threat.

'I was wrong... And the Asui family paid the price for it.'

*Ring*

He answered the phone that was ringing.

"Yes... I see... Yes, it certainly is concerning... No, I will pull back all the surveillance on him... About that, as long as he stays within the limits of the law, I don't see a problem... No, we can not afford for him to go rogue... He is right. It was our fault... Yes, and Principal Nezu, call for a meeting. We need to do something about our protection protocols and our policy in handling villains. The entire system needs an overhaul... No, I shall personally talk to him on the day of the funeral."

As he ended the call, he got up from his seat and looked outside the window.

'No apologies are ever going to be enough... You are right, Phantasm. Enough is enough. Let's take the fight to them.'

(APIBNHA)

"What did he say?"

A smile played on Nezu's lips as he said, "He's going to withdraw surveillance on you. And as long as you stay within the limits of the law, you are given free reign to act as seen fit while pursuing the case of your family's murders."

I sagged into my chair. His decision had come a little too late, but I was still content with it.

"Asui-kun, words can not describe how sorrowful I am over the deaths of your family members. I can fully understand that nothing will be enough to console you. But, what I can do is promise you that U.A. stands with you. Before you left for the summer camp, we discussed the involvement of the local police with Musutafu Savages. You were right, the police captain is compromised, and so is the rest of the police force belonging to that particular precinct. Sadly, such is the case with many other precincts as well."

"This... This city isn't as safe as the mayor portrays it to be."

"That is true. The mayor doesn't want it to be made public out of fear of the mass panic. But, the situation is far worse for it to be hidden under the rug. Asui-kun, we are going to propose the re-opening of the Torture and Interrogation Department of this city."

He offered me a cup of tea and said, "It may be a personal war for you, but it's also a war for us as well. And I do not plan to lose this war."

I accepted the cup, took a sip, and said, "Let's show them why heroes are also known as enforcers of the law."