5 Chapter 5: The Calm

"U-Um, Aunty is away, G-Garou-san. S-She won't b-be home for a month or t-two."

The nervous, shy boy said as he leads Garou into his home once again. His room was less blemishing compared to before: Wallpapers unpeeled and intact, furniture upright and proper, the broken microwave replaced, a working fridge, and more.

"Huh." All in all, Garou absorbed the true glory of the boy's home, unsullied by the dirt and touch of raiders. He nodded in approval to the large, simple room.

"Got a room for me?" All he needed was a bed and some space, along with a wardrobe for a potential change of clothes as well.

"W-Well, no. I-I mean, I cannot clear a room for you or Aunty will find out." Ghin shook his head. The boy did not want to risk his exposure to the higher authorities, especially his aunt.

"Good point," Garou noted the boy's loyalty.

Looking around, Garou noticed a room, a door with the poster of All Might pinned onto the mahogany door. The door was open, the interior revealed, a sanctuary full of hero action figures atop a desk near a white, unruffled bed. However, every one of them collected dust, a sign of long disuse.

"You a hero fan?" Garou did not mind. He could put his knowledge on heroes to good use in the end.

The boy blushed in response, shyly looking away. "Well… kind of." Garou did not press further on his preferences.

He looked at the other rooms, leaning his head forward for a better view, either seeing them empty or filled to the brim - one of which he assumed belonged to the boy's supposed 'Aunty.'

"Where do you sleep if not your room?"

"E-Eh? How'd you know?!" Ghin asked, confused and surprised to hear Garou's question.

"Your bed's too neat. Perfect even." His bed was nearly untouched, too immaculate, like a bed from a hotel room waiting to receive arriving guests.

Turning away from his new 'bodyguard,' Ghin shuffled his feet with some shame, "U-Um, I usually s-sleep on the roof."

His unexpected answer threw Garou off slightly. "The roof?" Of all the answers, that wasn't one of Garou's predictions.

"M-Mhm. I like to sleep under the starry skies," Ghin nodded timidly.

Now that caught Garou's attention.

"Really? Why sleep out in the unprotected air?" Garou could understand the appeal of sleeping outside of nature sometimes, but this seemed more than just mere adoration for the natural world.

"M-My papa was an Astrologist. H-He usually took mama and me out for camping once every month to stargaze out in the national park…" His voice started to break for a second before recapturing its composure, but Garou did not miss the disruption of tone.

"What happened to them?" Garou asked as the word 'was' did not correspond to his liking.

"..." The boy looked down; his eyes started to tremble.

The hunter did not need a concise answer. Now he understood why he lived with his Aunt and not his parents. "You don't have to say it."

Another silent pause, the boy nodded in understanding.

"...do you want takeout for dinner?" Ghin asked, wiping the tears from his eyes before forcing a cheery smile past his cheeks.

"How much can you afford?"

Ghin blinked upon hearing his odd question, "U-Um, Aunty left me a hefty allowance so-"

"As much as you can. For three people at least."

Ghin blinked upon the interrupting demand, "Eh? Seriously?"

Garou did not look like as if he was joking.

"I-I-ahem… Chinese, Seafood, or American?"

"All of them."

"Huh?" His hunger defied the boy's expectations.

"Are you human?" No average human could consume such amounts unless they had a Quirk.

Garou responded with a 'hmph,' "Yeah. Why?"

"I… never mind. I'll make the call," Ghin shook his mind clear of the stockpiling questions boiling within and walked towards the phone, questions he will air out for another day.

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After the villain-hero pile incident, various controversies erupted around Japan on his alignment. While it was true that villains antagonistic to other villains existed, when placing Hero Hunter as the topic of conversation, verbal debates furiously rippled throughout every corner of Japan, from the mouths of heroes, civilians, and even villains.

Most of the heroes debated how they should avoid the Hero Hunter or apprehend the polarizing villain, with more heroes on the side to elude the hero-hunting demon. Little did Garou know, he already became the Symbol of Fear for the modern heroes despite his current level. There were even a few heroes that considered retiring from the hero profession entirely just to avoid the Hero Hunter.

However, compared to the heroes, the response was more polarizing from the villains. One group admired the violence and brutality of Garou, some even attempting to recreate the body piles Garou left in his wake at this time. Another group held nothing but disdain, feeling betrayed by Garou's including villains in his crosshairs - their expectations shot down the moment he added fellow outcasts into his spectrum of prey. Some of them considered hunting the Hero Hunter down to avenge their fallen compatriots despite the risks.

As for the civilians, the parents of their respective children were torn between sending their children to Hero School and forbidding them from attending. Garou's hunts impacted parents the most, planting fear into their hearts with pictorial possibilities of their children joining the pile of bodies along with the heroes. But, despite the grievances of the parents, the next generation still wished to follow through with their becoming the heroes of their respective dreams.

One of the next generations was currently engaging with their parents concerning her future. Uraraka turned to her parents; her dimpled features huffed as she stood before them, staunch in her decision.

"Mama! Papa! You two can't change my mind anymore! I'm still going to UA!"

The young girl defended her dream, despite the threat of Garou looming overhead, blanketing the future of heroes with unimagined perils.

The father and mother gently smiled, masking their worry behind the benign veneer.

"Ochako… are you sure about this?" The mother asked, wanting confirmation in her choice of a career in spite of the dangers it carried.

"We are worried for you, Ochako. Mama and Papa don't want you to risk your life for us. We are doing fine as it is." The father relayed.

However, despite their attempts, their daughter responded with wide eyes burning with determination. She was still devoted to walking the dangerous road, even though it was no longer the same, safe road for young minds to reach their dreams.

"I'll be fine! Please wish me good luck." Ochako smiled, flashing her pearly whites. Her heartwarming smile melted the hearts of her parents, along with their resistance.

Arguments between parent(s) and child also happened to others around Japan. A particular rich girl with the ability to create anything from her body fat was fiercely debating with her parents on her enrollment to UA. A particular living bomb engaged in verbal combat with his mother, adamantly staunch in his career choice. Even a certain concerned mother tried her best to convince her formerly Quirkless son to abstain, not wanting her child to appear in a body pile, broken in mind, body, and soul.

If their fears remain unassuaged, it will consume the hero system like the cold of night preying on a dying campfire. Fear is contagious, one of the most influential driving forces of life, and worse, it takes no sides - be it good or evil.

The ones living on the other side of the coin reacted differently.

"An acting coward dares to mock my crusade?" Holding the latest newspaper, looking at the Hero Hunter section with disdain, the crimson-themed killer of Heroes growled in rasps, teeth trembling and eyes wildly twitching with infuriated mania. The Hero Killer, Stain, started and trended the hunt of heroes long before this pitiful excuse of a hunter even started, and yet this newcomer took over the attention of Japan by a storm, sweeping his existence aside like trash.

Worse, the Hero Killer discerned a fact hidden behind the maelstrom savagery: Garou had not taken a single life with his hands despite being capable of defeating so many. Stain thought he finally found a sympathizer and would be more than elated to invite him to his cause if it weren't for this inkling.

From this alone, he could draw only one conclusion. Garou had no desire to cleanse the world of weak heroes, just to break down the worth and value of heroism entirely without any regard for the consequences.

As for a certain archnemesis of the Symbol of Peace, he smiled at the progress of this individual while his faceless 'gaze' focused on the television screen. Listening to the reporter, All For One pondered on this one's potential, considering what he should do if he managed to turn this successful hunter into his fold.

While he did took in an heir to pass his Quirk onto, the purpose behind his chose was to fashion an infectious knife to carve and infect All Might's image and spirit. However, he would prefer someone more capable should Tomura indeed fail to live up to his expectations. While it is in human nature to bestow one's strength to the next generation, it is also in a human's nature to replace what one has for something better, something more ideal. All For One was reconsidering his choice of successor behind the descendant of the previous wielder of One For All.

Another fact that the ageless villain discovered was that this one shares Tomura's age. He can discern Garou's age from his experience, his years of observation of newer generations of villains making their debut, the accumulated knowledge and data more than enough to conjecture Garou's age. Although, Garou's personality still eluded him, his character and behavior quite a unique specimen, an anomaly that required further study.

As for the Heir of All For One, his eyes glared at the wall of snipped newspapers, all sections about the feats of the Hero Hunter and the impact they brought to the Hero Community. He scowled at the articles, feeling threatened by Garou's growing infamy.

Next to the snippets was a corrupted image of Garou, blood warping the hunter's image and red filtering the view. A demonic portrayal of Garou in its most potent, a shadowed demon from hell naturally complementing the red environ. Tomura slammed his palm on the red poster, four of his five fingers pressed on the paper, the remaining appendage threatening to make contact.

He was livid, furious at the Hero Hunter. This nameless upstart managed to steal a head start, a lead in the race to become the next Kingpin of the underworld. On the one hand, the urge to hunt down this Garou and decay his body to ash was enticing, something he would more than gladly oblige. On the other, the villains will lose a valuable asset, a card against the Symbol of Peace.

Tomura gritted his teeth, wanting to murder this Garou with his own hands, but considered otherwise. His lips curled into a grin, entertaining a thought. The secret weapon his Sensei was funding… what would happen if he pits this flawless Anti-All-Might and Garou against All Might? Witnessing All Might's unsightly demise supersede his desire to maim this Symbol of Fear.

After all, the road to becoming an icon of fear was not his desire - only the apex of evil will catch his eye.

---------

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu~"

Atop the roof, exhaling a deep breath with the sun soaring behind him with turtle-like grace and painting his world in the orange of dawn, Garou immersed himself in his mental world, meditating half naked with only the skin of his baggy pants with intense focus.

Seated cross-legged, The Hero Hunter drifted away from the material world to submerge into the darkest corners of his mind, emptying himself of distractions in his training.

Within his inner world, he visualized the two apex grandmasters that defeated him before his arrival, simulating phantom combat between him and them. He envisioned all possible methods of victory over the two geezers; his sole goal is to surpass them and achieve the perfect form he desired ever since small.

However, he cannot defeat them, simulated or real. No matter the number of his attempts, he could only see his disgraceful defeat in two on one, but the further down his efforts, the more he overwhelmed them in his simulacrum.

He was growing in power the more he fights, stronger when nearer with Death. Not only did each imaginary battle further pushed him further to his potential, but also past the ubiquitous limit to the great power that lies on the other side.

Done with visual training, for now, Garou opened his eyes, gazing at the shadow elongated by the sun behind.

"How long are you going to watch?"

The person Garou was referring to flinched behind the door, slowly poking his head out the exit door frame, his silver ahoge wagging side by side like the tail of a puppy.

"..."

The boy did not respond with words, but with curious eyes.

Garou sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose, "What do you eat for breakfast, anyway?"

Ghin blinked as he pondered, "Usually eggs and rice or cereal and waffles. Sometimes ramen, sometimes rice with meat and veggies."

Garou considered the choices, "I want some ramen along with some meat."

Nodding, the boy ran back downstairs to his home floor, eager to prepare the dish for his bodyguard and guest.

He ran out to the kitchen and started the stove, filled a pan in the sink, and placed it over the active burner, letting the flame warm and boil the cold liquid. The boy then proceeded to grab bags of ramen and retrieve the vegetables and meat from the fridge, readying the breakfast for the two of them.

While the boy prepared the breakfast, Garou landed on the couch in the living room, grabbed a remote and turned on the plasma screen TV. What brand the television belonged to, Garou did not know, but considering the screen's high-def quality, it must be very costly.

The first channel, the cooking show, greeted him. Garou immediately switched channels regardless. A cartoon show about All Might fighting villains blinked into the screen. Angry, Garou changed the channel again - and again.

However, most of the channels only slowly bled out his boredom and replaced it with frustration instead. The channels that greeted him were either mostly about interviews of heroes, communities promoting the fame of heroes, or shows below Garou's tolerance.

Upon landing on a news channel, Garou smirked with interest as he witnessed the current state of heroes in the hospital along with the gruesome fate of villains he maimed yesterday. The sight of broken bodies, for some reason, soothed his soul as he smiled wider upon watching their reaction to the interviewer's question on him, the one who personally sent them to those resting beds himself.

Most of them spoke with fear, others apprehension, a few unable to respond at all from abject terror. Garou chuckled at their reaction, and then he watched how the fanbase reacted to their heroes' current state.

A statistical analyst compiled the data from last week, speaking of a significant ten percent drop in sales of hero merchandise after the first body pile. Garou reveled the diagramed decrease of faithful hero supporters, of how mortified some fans were even to witness their idols' pitiful state.

However, there was a surprising lack of All Might within the news channel. Word of his defeat wasn't present within any topics so far.

Throwing his back on cushions back him, Garou grimaced at the absence of anything All-Might-related. "Did they conceal his defeat?"

Garou speculated that the loss of their so-called Number One Patient would carve out another severe wound from society's gestalt vision of heroes, though as for the magnitude Garou did not mull over. Now that Garou thought about it, what would happen if the world learned of his victory over the muscled hero? Garou imagined chaos and anarchy deluging the streets: Quirk users rampaging and attacking civilians, many robberies taking place, victims piling by the storm, and more using his encounter with scum in Hosu as his reference.

"It better not be too noisy," Garou uttered with displeasure.

The world better not descend into too much chaos before Garou achieved his end goal.

"G-Garou-san, breakfast's ready!"

A gurgling rumble responded in the living room, a sound that did not reach the boy's ears.

"Sweet."

Closing the TV, Garou hopped off his seat and casually strolled into the kitchen.

A large, hot steaming bowl of noodles standing atop the tablecloth greeted him, the scent actually tantalizing to his nose. Accompanying the main dish, bowls of beef and chicken, as well as plates of vegetables, surrounded it, forming a simple but fulfilling meal for a stomach of his size.

Moving to his seat with his smaller bowl of soup noodles, Ghin started to dig, pulling several slivers of ramen to his mouth before he slurped them down his throat.

Not hearing the usual 'itadakimasu,' Garou threw one of his chopsticks at the boy, the wooden stick bouncing off his hard head before coming back to his hand.

"Pay your respects before eating," Garou lectured, the boy rubbing his head with a whimper before nodding in forced compliance.

Seeing him say 'itadakimasu,' Garou then paid his respects with his 'itadakimasu,' and proceeded to slurp grouping strands into his mouth - as Ghin watched and mimicked his actions timidly, stuffing his cheeks full.

"Umm," he spoke with his mouth full, "are you planning to hunt more heroes today?"

"Maybe. I want to explore the land, though." Garou replied with his mouth also full.

"Got any interesting places?" Garou asked before gulping.

---------

Fuai Serif was one of the Administrators behind the Hero Community, a manager of the Department's Strategic and Target Oriented Patrol Plan. He was responsible for assigning both heroes and police to specific locations, schedule patrol routes for the less popular and effective heroes along with police officers and accountable for cataloging the crime rates in each section of Japan.

His face belonged to that of a kind man, the one that would feed the birds every day with a warm smile and eyes closed. His figure was stout, but his belly bulged the white under cloth beneath his suit, indicating slight levels of obesity. His hair was absent from his balding dome, old age already bedecking white strands into his black eyebrows and beard, and wrinkles sloughing his smooth face pulled down by hands of decay.

However, behind his facade was a rotten, vile thing, something that belonged to somewhere trash belonged to, where others must throw him to erase from their memories. Something even most villains would smite if given a chance if they knew of his true nature.

He was one of the Union's loyal seed, a manipulator of strings to secure trading routes and silence curious eyes to ensure the security of the dark side - one of the critical figures allowing the transport of illegal goods like villain costumes and even the materials needed to sustain a certain All For One. How else could Villains obtain products under the nose of heroes if not from someone on the inside aiding them?

For years, he leaked information to the leading villain organizations: which heroes assigned to which route, allocating schedules and create gaps in their patrols so smugglers can slip past them undetected, and even committed blackmail and ordered assassinations to ensure tight lips on his job.

Not only that, he had a terrible reputation of… forcing himself upon the opposite sex, the stronger-minded the more he desired to break. He was sadistically fond of abusing and violating the innocent, even once had his way with a tender soul not even reaching the age of six, before he erased the memory of his victims with his Quirk.

His Quirk, "Mind Wipe," allowed him to erase the memories of others by at most a few days - the number of usages being twice a day. However, he cannot use the Quirk on the same target twice; thus he could not reuse his victims lest he dug his own grave in his ignorance.

However, evidence of his misdeeds slowly leaked drip by drip, the droplets forming a puddle in the soil and dangerously close to filling the pond. The leak took the form of an irksome investigator that somehow obtained some evidence of his misdeeds, an accomplishment which leads to said person's assassination. But, to Fuai's dismay, he left a trail that leads to his current situation, him enduring a severe case regarding his involvement of the assassination.

The Union he worked for only left him with a few options to salvage the situation, his standing placed in jeopardy within this debacle. If he cannot absolve his dilemma adequately, the Union will silence him forever and leave no trace of his corpse. Thus, the sequence of events lead to his resorting to covert abduction and blackmail, but his attempts were… undesirable. The first attempted ended with a hero managing to catch wind of the kidnapping, the second, using a 'nanny' to babysit the boy, lead to him escaping the villain in disguise - the boy proving more cunning than he thought - and managed to contact a hero to arrest the second kidnapper and the third…

News of his mercenaries' deaths had recently reached his ears, a gory scene depicting a butcher from hell to mutilate the sinners limb-by-limb, deaths so graphic not even the stoutest, most hardened hearts would remain unfazed at the savagery. The only witness there was the very boy they were sent to abduct, and his story was absurdly unrealistic, speaking of a man falling from the sky covered in blood and tearing his hired hand to pieces.

Such a claim was beyond surreal, yet in the world of Quirks, it corresponds to the realm of possibilities nonetheless. Still, for Fuai's third attempt to fail by what anyone could accurately describe as an 'act of God,' it only fueled his frustrations past the boiling point and near the melting one.

As for his opponent, Tsukihana Shinjitsu held an annoying talent for the law, along with an equally bothersome Quirk. Her tongue can help amplify the persuasive effects of her words, better sway the court into her favor. It cannot perform superhuman feats like convincing someone to commit suicide with just an utter, but, if used with the right words, she can sway even the most obstinate soul to her side if her skill with the tongue was enough.

However, it was not without weakness. Her Quirk functions by amplifying the effects of her speech to those that listened, meaning her Quirk will not work on anyone antagonistic to her or neutral. If one was aware of her Quirk, the effects lessen with that knowledge alone. The key concept behind her Quirk is refining the vision of authenticity, not forcing it upon the minds it touched. She cannot force its effects like with Fuai's, giving her credence enough to work in her complicated profession.

Not only that, despite her Quirk, she had built a growing reputation in her line of work, earning the trust of her clients and the government itself - a crusader of sorts determined to purge all corruption and malevolence infecting modern society.

A dangerous foe with promise, someone that can rise high in the justice world, but she was still young and vulnerable; she does have weaknesses, one of which was the nephew of her beloved older sister.

The man now spoke with All For One via cell phone, untraceable, in his private room of desk and books shrouded in the shade, "Yes, but… alright. In any case, I understand your position, though still… what? You have?"

Fuai gritted his teeth in his chair.

"Alright… I understand."

He hung up, gritting his teeth in anger.

"After working hard for him, and the Union, after working my back off to bring that faceless freak the tools needed even to survive all this time, they think they can replace me? ME?!" Fuai roared throwing his phone at the wall, splitting into parts on contact.

"I'm the one keeping tabs on the heroes and their patrols! I'm the eyes and ears that warns the darkness of the light! And yet, they think their eyes and ears can be so easily replaced?!" Fuai ranted his grievances, unable to tolerate his position.

His imagination ran wild, corrupted by a mix of rage and depraved lust, a silver-haired young woman bound and helpless before his encroaching wrath. Drool started to slick from his lip's corners before suddenly returning inside with a slurp.

The pig in human form submerged himself in his idle fantasies as he pondered on possible paths to overcoming and subjugating his foe, but no matter what, he still couldn't think of anything else. He cannot touch nor harm Tsukihana, unable to sabotage her agency due to heavy security of heroes and the plethora of witnesses, and he was on the defensive against her.

Still, no matter what he conjured, he couldn't find a solution other than hostage… wait, an idea had popped up. Desecrate her home and burn it down along with the boy? What if he could break her spirit instead with murdering a young child?

He was surprised that he hadn't thought of it before. Maybe murdering children was his limit, a line no one should cross, but that no longer mattered. His life dangled on a thin, fragile thread, his only way up threatening to snap. No more room remained for mistakes, only success - do or die, as they said.

"I wonder what hired hands Giren has available for me" He must work fast. The woman was gaining more and more ground by the day.