1 How are you going to save the world like this ?

In the bustling city of Portwal, a young hero stood in their room. (Y/n) had just gotten up for the day and was going to get ready.

Despite being a hero, they were rather tight with money. After all the damage on themselves and their clothes because of villains, they had learnt their lesson. If a hero were to look like a unorganised person, people — of course — would doubt them. That's not something they wanted, especially since they had worked hard on attaining the title of hero.

Portwal didn't have many villains, just a singular villain that would always wreck havoc on people for no other reason than just for fun.

Blackout — his name was exactly what his ability was, or rather a portion of it. This peculiar villain had the ability to bring chaos; the surroundings around a selected person would turn black and the poor victim caught inside this black hole would then be forced to go against his remaining ability.

Thankfully, there weren't many people who had been caught in Blackout's ability, yet; the reason for it perhaps was because you were the only hero in the city. The higher officials deemed it unnecessary to have many heroes placed in the most under developed part of the city as there was only one major villain: Blackout. He was strong, and barely did you make it out alive but officials wanted the best of the best in their part of the city, They didn't care about anyone but themselves. The rest of them were just your everyday law breakers.

The villain sure hated you having a moment of peace, as any time you bothered to sit down and rest, he would cause mayhem. Because of this, you had to spend a ton of money on the damages done to your possessions; oftentimes, you weren't even able to afford breakfast.

Thus — as stupid as it seemed — you had no choice but to be careful when you spent your money. You could either use it for yourself or you could spend money to improve you clothing in order to save millions of people from having to deal with the villain.

The villain had no mercy when it came to messing with you; half of the time you ended up with a broken arm or leg — if lucky. One time, he knocked you out for two days straight.

While you were busy recovering in some uncomfortable hospital bed, he was busy bringing destruction to the city.

It was at times like this where you had no problem cursing out higher officials who did nothing but sit down at their desk and tell heroes who risked their life what to do and what not to do.

Being a hero was only great when you were one of the top ten; otherwise, it was plain hell for any heroes not meeting those qualifications. Not getting paid, risking your life — hell, they didn't even care when heroes ended up in the hospital — not unless you were well known, of course. All the money that was supposed to be used in improving various corners of the agency would go into the pockets of the top ten or agency officials; it was a corrupt system where the strong became even stronger and the weak had nothing.

No matter what you said, nothing would change. One word about how the agency worked and that would be it: you'd lose your career and you'd be left for dead.

In many ways, this job wasn't meant to be taken lightly. You've witnessed many who started optimistically with high hopes leaving when they realised how bad the conditions were. The system was truly cruel.

You on the other hand couldn't leave; if you wanted to be able to afford a house or food, you had to continue risking your life. Now that you thought about it, you were pretty sure that Blackout didn't exactly have a better life than you in terms of how you were being treated.

Today was like any other day: you had skipped breakfast in order to afford lunch, so as to not make your friends question what kind of lifestyle you were currently living.

Heading to you class, you plugged your headphones into your ears to show you weren't interested in interacting with anyone. Your phone and your headphones where one of the few things your parents hadn't taken away from you saying, 'I paid for this.' For that, you were terribly thankful.

Classes were boring as usual; nothing note-worthy happened, which was exactly what you looked forward to: no distractions, no villain and just a day to yourself.

Peace and silence in your routine was something you looked forward to everyday, but unfortunately, that wasn't happening anytime soon.

Heading towards the canteen to grab a light snack, you sat down on a bench near the school. Your friends were too busy to hang out with you as they had their own classes and projects to deal with. Which, when you thought about, sounded like they were trying to ignore you.

Sighing, you went back home.

Throwing your bag to the side, you got dressed and went on your daily parole. Which again, was a huge pain in your behind. The chances of Blackout appearing on parole were low today since the little shit liked to mostly bother you whenever you were resting, so you didn't expect much to happen.

You walked around the city, mostly in the shadows to not cause panic among the citizens. You were definitely a bit dizzy, but you were sure it would pass eventually if you ignored it long enough; after all, a small headache wasn't something new to you. You realised that you couldn't even remember the last time you ate properly, now that you were reminded of your hunger.

Only when a black dome had surrounded you, did you come back to your senses. Your mind screamed curses. Blackout had returned.

This sucked, so much. With one last sigh, you got into a fighting stance and tried to become more aware of your surroundings. He could pop out from anywhere; that was the one thing you had learnt after being dragged into such situations multiple times.

"My my, hero, you don't leave many openings for me, do you?" A voice appeared out of nowhere, its condescending tone causing a shudder to go down your back.

In front of you, black particles started to form and thus revealed Blackout. His long black hair cascading down his back and his piercing golden eyes looking at you, he shot you a grin.

His outfit was what you expected any villian to wear: a shirt tucked into a pair of well fitting trousers and a long black overcoat. His face was masked by a masquerade mask that covered the area around his eyes. Of course, he was clothed all in black to fit his theme.

A small smirk was displayed on his face as he moved his hand to the left. Knowing him well since you had already dealt with him for a while, you realised his attack would be coming from the right; the hand was only a false alarm to throw you off.

Jumping back, you barely missed a strike of black metal aimed at you. You felt an upcoming headache nearing.

The fight between the two of you went on for an incredibly long time and each move you made took a lot of effort. Eventually, you were left panting, and so was he.

"My hero, you look troubled. Could it be that you're not taking care of yourself well?" he asked, tilting his head to the side with a smug smirk playing on his lips.

"Shut up!"

"Hero, that's very rude, you know. I'm just concerned, that's all!" An innocent giggle escaped Blackout's lips.

You body felt heavy and you could barely see straight. Eventually, you felt the ground underneath you giving up. The last thing you heard was the sound of someone walking towards you.

"Seriously, (Y/n), you need to start taking care of yourself more."