Chapter 32: Blind

He saw red. Nothing but his opponent made its way into his vision.

Crack

His uncalibrated leap broke something again, this time someone's mailbox. He landed on the roof in one swoop, panting with rage while eyeing his opponent.

"Yes... That's the look I want to see."

Ehno barely registered the words, only retaining things that would help him immediately fight.

He jumped toward the villain, dashing down like a meteor.

'He's strong,' he thought, remembering the force that had come out of nowhere and shoved his tail aside.

The crocodile wanted to heave a dry laugh.

Yet, he had started this fight himself and certainly wouldn't miss such an expression, so he looked up while opening his mouth.

'Rage-driven fools are too easy.'

Clamp

His mouth was filled with blood as he bit into the man's forearm. Yet, even with such injuries, he still frowned.

'It's too little.' His bite was enough to sever a body, not to mention a mere arm. Yet this time, he only drew blood.

'Oh well.' He enacted a favorite follow-up move of his. Quickly jumping onto his toes, he lunged backward while spinning his body, hoping to decapitate the arm.

Yet Ehno was not done, and as if the pain were akin to a mosquito bite, he pulled his arm upwards, forcing the body attached to follow.

Perhaps it was the trust in his body, but Ehno never once during the fight cared for the possibility of losing his arm.

Ehno bulged his arm as he slammed him into the floor, shaking but not breaking the two-story building.

But not letting him catch a breather, Ehno crouched down and clamped his huge hands on his snout, closing it.

'Their snout has a weak opening force,' he remembered hearing before. He then proceeded to punch his face in for four minutes straight.

Looking at the disoriented sack of flesh and calming down, Ehno did the only sensible thing he could think of: Continue.

His focus had long since left the woman, and he was only focused on venting the current anger he held.

Thus, he ignored the ambulance showing up and attending to the woman below.

"Up there—" The man dressed in a bright red and black flashy uniform spoke while pointing upwards.

"He's~fighting," a rather shaken-up bystander spoke.

"He?"

"A...vigilante, I think. He saved her and is fighting that villain up there."

'Saved...' The paramedic looked at the victim again.

She had lacerations on most of her limbs, broken ribs, and a suspected miscarriage. Yet she was 'saved.'

Deciding not to get involved, he dialed the police and local hero agencies.

Five minutes later, Ehno had a pile of bloody teeth lying beside him.

Pluck

"MMHHHH." He looked down at his victim, who wasn't screeching in pain but rather taking things head-on.

His moans of agony showed he did feel pain, but likely due to some kind of messed-up upbringing, he felt a reduced amount.

Whether it be plucking out a tooth extremely slowly, breaking one in half, or even trying to stick them back in, the man didn't give Ehno the reaction he wanted.

"WHEEEE-OOOOOOHHHHH!"

 Now he heard distant sirens signaling that the police had finally arrived, and the heroes were no doubt behind.

'You done,' a small voice inside him spoke. 'No. He didn't get what he deserved—'

'Yet it was Ehno who cut himself off. 'Deserved? No, say it straight. You didn't fulfill your revenge.'

Ehno put a hand to his eyes, wiping away all of the accumulated sweat, before looking around for the first time after hearing her scream. He took in the vastness of blood that littered the roof.

'That's going to be hard to clean up.' He took in the shattered AC units.

'In this hot summer weather, some could overheat and suffer from heat stroke.' He took in the shattered building walls and roof.

'More money out of their pockets to pay.' He took in the destruction around him, the acts of violence that the bystanders, the innocent neighbors, would have to pay for.

The city barely reimburses people for damage caused by heroes, meaning it's a 50/50 split on whether the hero who did the damage is nice and has their hero agency pay for the damage.

But vigilante damage?

'They're barely getting a lick back for this,' he said to himself, self-deprecatingly.

'You've done enough.' He hated how the voice of reason inside him was right.

If he caused all of this, what better was he than those careless bastards before? Ehno clenched his fists until they turned white.

He looked up and made eye contact with one of the news reporters from the helicopter before they rapidly turned away.

'Fear.' It was an emotion he'd long since wished to stop causing.

Ehno turned his eyes away and looked outward. He scanned the buildings before finding a path of roofs, which would lead him to a familiar alleyway in which he could make his escape.

"Let's go," he whispered.

"HEY, YOU STOP!" Just as he started running, a bogey started on his trail.

Ehno jumped and rolled under a gas pipe while also easily dodging the stun bullets being shot at him. He took a second to look behind him and identify his pursuer.

As he did his research, even in the dead of night, the golden locks that fell down to cover one portion of her face, along with the build that matched his descriptions, helped him identify his mark.

'Ryukyu.'

He was internally surprised that a superhero sidekick was chasing him. No, she even had the guts to chase after a vigilante.

She must've seen his "work" since she passed by that area to get to him, yet she still pursued him even so. She had his respect.

He knows her quirk is a transformation type; thus, looking at her appearance, he wasn't too worried about being caught.

Ehno looked up and covered his eyes. The whirring noises from the news, along with the bright light shining on him, secured his escape and made it inevitable.

He chuckled at the situation, wanting to fix his mood before dashing off again.

.

.

Throughout the course of his chase, two situations always occurred. The "hero" would try and use her quirk, but the news would always focus the camera on her, as when she tried to do so, she went out of view.

'Two heads are worse than one when not working in tandem.' Thinking this, Ehno suddenly spotted a wide ledge ahead of him.

"GOT YOU, NOW STOP AN—" She never finished her sentence, as he jumped with no hesitation.

She boosted her resolve and ran even faster, stopping right before the ledge and looking over, only to find nothing.

She wanted to look up and curse at the distraction above. 'UGH, IF THEY DIDN'T FOCUS ON ME SO MUCH, HE WOULDN'T HAVE GOTTEN AWAY!'

'Deep breaths.'

She tried to calm herself; not all things are lost. She looked up and partially used her quirk to make her eyes become slits while sending a death stare at those flying the helicopter.

They seemed to get the memo as they quickly flew off, realizing that they were distracting her and hoping that they could escape any lawsuits.

'Not that they will.' She scoffed.

She hid behind a huge metal box on the roof and cursed herself for her carelessness.

'If I didn't forget my costume, then I wouldn't have needed to worry about anyone else.'

Still, as she said so, she stripped until she was wearing nothing else before finally activating her quirk with a touch of her hand to her head.

Her body and face elongated vertically as her skin turned into pale grey scales. Her eyes, which had returned to normal, once again took their slitted look, and grey wings grew out of her upper back.

A tail grew from her lower one, and with all four of her limbs being covered in scales, she looked like a western dragon.

'Oops, almost forgot.'

She mentally manipulated her quirk to cover her entire body below her neck in scales, covering everything.

'Haiz, Sensei was right in that I should always keep my costume on me.' It was only now that she regretted not listening.

Though she still agreed with her past self that lugging around a costume wasn't the most favorable option, it sure was when compared to losing her bogey.

Still getting into focus, she sniffed around, trying to find his scent. Luckily, this area, for better or worse, only had one distinct scent of trash, thus finding his wasn't hard.

She tracked it from above since she didn't want to smash any buildings, but the farther she got, the more obscured it was.

She flew faster, hoping the sinking pit in her stomach would be false.

Yet when she reached the cut-off location, only a piece of the rags remained, and burnt ashes littered the ground.