7 Chapter 7: Fear Engraved

Far within the untamed outskirts of Hosu, shrouded in the sea of boles and green foliage bathing under the afternoon sun, the silver-haired fledgling assailed the smiling target of his ire while his lungs burned past its limits. A feeling excruciatingly shared with his arms and legs, his abdomen, and his head screaming at him to allow a respite from the pain - a luxury he cannot permit as he continued assailing the Crimson Hunter.

"Try harder, Shrimp."

"Don't… call me that!" 'Shrimp' wheezed with his blood-shot eyes fired at the evil one, his efforts doubled from the provocation.

For weeks, he suffered under his hands. A part of him regretted taking his challenge, but his pride and rage superseded any desire to back down. Without anything to lose in life, he will tread the road to Hell and get out one way or another. All so he can beat up the man with a penchant for violence and erecting monuments of his victories with the bodies of his victims.

Recounting his beginnings, Ghin cannot believe that he even lived through the hellish ordeals Garou held in store for him. Climbing the hellish peaks thrice per day, performing series of stances of martial art he had never heard of while encumbered with aching muscle and bones, and spar with the Hero Hunter along with other exercises reinforcing his fighting sense and reflexes. Even after all that, the boy had to walk back home tired and wracked by gnawing agony.

Leaping up, he pounced, swiping for Garou's neck like a tiger trying to tear the throat of its prey. But Garou was nothing like prey, but a more dangerous predator toying with its food.

One hand relaxed behind, Garou casually stepped back with synchronized timing, the skin of his neck narrowly escaping the nail of Ghin's claws - so relaxed that it was mocking to the boy's efforts - an act the boy will not tolerate as he drew every last drop of his strength with clenching teeth and furious fervor and charged forward. In the duration, Garou backed away in response at a close, fixed distance, like a magnet forever moving out of Ghin's repulsing reach.

"Yes, good! Fight against your weakness and come at me!" Garou grinned as he continued evading the boy's belligerent leaps and lunges without a drop of consideration for defense.

He smiled while Ghin snarled, approving the boy's progress and tenacity.

Despite climbing the mountain thrice and performing various martial sets in the prior morning, the boy fought on with promising potential despite the burning pain and heavy fatigue threatening to drag him into inevitable collapse.

He favored the boy's tenacity and fighting spirit, along with his improving mentality and mood; a significant change compared from then and now.

Ghin developed his preferred fighting style during the weeks, a much more aggressive reflection of the Old Fart's martial arts. It was like the prelude of a roaring flood, the unsettling glimpse at the beginning stages of a rampaging tidal wave slowly growing to a tsunami. Its aggressiveness was more primal compared to his own, the boy's aggressive stances designed to obliterate the enemy, to forbid the enemy any quarter.

His choice of style was not what Garou expected, however. Initially, he conjectured a more passive choice, but given the boy's current lack of timidity, Garou speculated that the boy locked away much of his anger within the depths of his heart. When he recalled Ghin's harsh past, he was impressed by how well the kid hid his inner turmoil from him.

Backed into a tree, his behind centimeters from the bark, he leaped over the boy's wide right hook; he did not miss how the boy tore a big chunk of bark from the poor tree, a feat he failed to accomplish before when they first met.

Seeing the splintered boles shattered by the hands of the Quirkless boy, Garou finally had proof - evidence that the power of Quirks held the potential of humans back.

Turning around with bellicose frustration contorting his face, Ghin was about to pursue his frisking master until the hunter raised one palm up.

"Let's call it a day for now." He suggested, his declaration flushing all of Ghin's belligerence down the drain as he cooled.

In his releasing his aggression, Ghin immediately collapsed to his hands and knees as if all the accumulated fatigue and exhaustion stole away his balance and breath. Sweat trickles off his chin and cheeks in rivulets, droplets of perspiration dripping into the soil and grass.

"How'd you feel, Shrimp?" Garou asked as the boy struggled to raise his right hand only to flash Garou a middle finger.

"Ahahahaha!" Garou laughed in response to his student's gall.

"I… hate you… so much!" Ghin expresses all of his spite for the martial artist.

"What happened to 'I will smack you so hard, you'll kiss the moon' before?"

"I will kick you off the mountain!" The polite timid boy was nowhere at this moment, replaced by an angry, adorable toddler trying to be as intimidating as The Hero Hunter himself.

"Ahahahaha!" Garou can't help but laugh at the kid's sense of humor, finding it very refreshing in this world of worthless heroes and villains.

"Stop laughing! I will ram my fist through your esophagus and tear out your stomach!" Raising his neck, Ghin pouted while his body trembled with irritated rage.

"Ahahaha, hah. Alright, let's go home. Or are your legs too weak to walk the distance?" Garou taunted, earning another tick mark from the boy.

"Graaaahhhh!" Ghin roared to his feet, his refusal to allow Garou the high ground to nitpick him. He will make Garou eat his words, then make him choke on it via strangulation.

"That's the spirit!" He flashed the boy a thumbs-up, only to receive another middle finger from him in return. Garou almost laughed once again. He started to like this version of Shrimp instead of the shy boy that always sulked in the playground.

Tired, Ghin looked at the long road, his legs begging him for rest upon remembering the distance he must trek once more. His frustration crumbled to silent wails as his legs cried with him - its pain as their voice pulsing through his tendons.

"I don't wanna walk back…" Ghin whined, expending all his rage. He did it every day for weeks, be it on school days or off days.

"It's good for your legs," Garou retorted.

The kid only pouted at Garou's cruel sense of humor. He had not the energy or words to even talk back in his current state, resorting to giving the Garou his angry eyes.

Garou only laughed as they walked down the road back between the columns of bark and leaves, patting the kid's head as they head back to their abode. The boy still pouted even in their escapade back to civilization, swearing to himself that he'll get Garou the next time.

---------

Returning home on foot while the sun entered its incipient twilight, Garou watched the news while the kid prepared dinner, preparing some gyoza and dumplings along with some rice.

Through the news, the screen presenting a conversation between host and guest, two of whose names never imprinted themselves within Garou's memories, he summarized the three months after he settled in the kid's home.

The fires of unrest plaguing Japan smoldered throughout the months slowly, cooled by the winds of peace. The Hero Hunter cases slowly dwindled into scarcity, each one tamer than the last - a change that did not escape the public's notice. At least when concerning the heroes.

The number of villain piles started to frequent more and more, while the number of heroes slowly decreased. And compared to the villains, the heroes felled by his hand downgraded to from gore-encrusted piles to simple defeats, their bodies harmed no further than mere, swift knockouts - not even a single drop of blood was spilled.

As for the villains, they drew the short end of the stick. Garou's fulcrum of violence tipped more towards the villains' side than that of the heroes', their fates equal to or worse than the first victims at his debut.

The villains Garou indirectly inflamed to action dwindled in number, each joining their fellows behind iron bars one by one once almost all the heroes Garou personally sent to the hospital recovered, both physically and mentally. Although, they did not return completely intact.

The scars of Garou, now infamously known as the Hunter Amongst Villains in the Hero Community, were apparent in every hero that left their hospital beds. While their bodies recovered, their pride and confidence did not. Whatever conviction they had in their standing as heroes were torn asunder by his hands, and then roughly patched together in stitches unhealed.

In summary, their morale was at an all-time low, slowly spreading throughout the Hero Community. Fear of encountering the Hero Hunter was present in the newest heroes and the untouched while touching the hearts of many veterans - none of them wish to join the Hero Hunter's growing body count.

Despite the peaceful settling, his impact never left the hearts of the many, civilians, heroes, and some villains. And little did they know, and it did not please the man himself as he read the newspaper as he sat on a public bench in Dagoba on a Monday under the afternoon sun.

"Hm." Garou murmured as the commercial aired.

Ignoring the irksome ads involving the merchandise of a certain rookie female giant with horns, which was next to impossible given that her name was almost everywhere be it television or billboard ads, he continued onto the next page - only to grimace further.

"Really?"

No matter how many times he sees it, he just could not understand the logic behind the populace's excessive praise and adoration for the heroes here. The amount was very sickening, even worse for a bunch of worthless sellouts.

It was like a world full of Amai Masks, all 'servants of justice' treated with unflinching, unconditional fanfare, only these were far worse than that overrated A-Class hero - the vermin equivalent in a sense infesting society.

The ads finally ceased as the next topic of conversation arrived, this one of him in general.

"[At long last, the agencies finally commissioned a manhunt against the Hero Hunter in response to his various 'hunts,' most likely in retaliation for the heroes he brutalized to an unnecessary extreme. As for the identities of the heroes participating in the manhunt, the agencies withheld their names but promised to divulge them after their success.]"

"Hoh?"

He was surprised to see a reaction force against him, though he questioned their very delayed response. However, the next scene later delves into said reason.

"[Normally, such a manhunt should be immediate in response to the severity of the Hero Hunter's 'hunts,' but, according to recent questioning, their time was occupied suppressing the chaos that ensued following the Hero Hunter, quelling the inspired villains that rose to action in the absence of the victimized heroes.]"

Most of the heroes were occupied dealing with the surge of villain incidents harassing the streets, some of which he contributed by adding them in body piles - mostly because they pissed him off with their gall to involve the innocent in their violence. Some of them dragged the Hero Hunter himself into their rampage, seven more times in his wandering search for viable game.

"[Unto the next topic, the ongoing case of Fuai Seriff seems to be concluding into a climax as the attorney of the various victims allegedly assaulted by him, Tsukihana Shinjitsu, progresses forward with newfound evidence about multiple counts of corruption and connections to various criminal organizations in Japan.]"

The silver-haired woman that he saw on TV, a young lady of early twenties bedecked in an argent-white suit with a grey tie spilling from her neck and a somewhat short blouse hugging a third of her thighs while the rest her legs showed naked skin minus the medium-high heels.

Her hair bundled into a ponytail behind her back, her eyes were like cerulean gems sparkling in the artificial lights, and her face almost seemed sculpted given her maiden-like visage.

The woman that the boy called his Auntie appeared behind the screen. Someone with not the time and freedom to care for the kid in her line of duty.

Apparently, due to some legal spiel, the woman was sequestered into her work office during certain large-scale cases concerning the societal and political; especially when charging one of the Hero industry's managers for fraud, tax fraud, molesting, abusing Quirk usage, and... frankly, Garou was surprised someone like him was still allowed to stay in office for so long.

According to the boy, Tsukihana cannot leave the case without consequences lest she suffered a significant fine and great repercussion to her judicial career.

It would explain why he never met the woman throughout the few months, now that Garou thought about it, although he doubted that her career choice was ideal when stacked with parental duties. Then again, the woman probably didn't have the luxury.

"Politics in the making." Garou grimaced.

He considered hunting the man, but the boy pleaded not to go. Not only would it complicate Garou's staying here, but also jeopardize any viable excuse to let him stay. The Hunter was surprised by the boy's sound logic. Now that he thought about it, Garou did hear that the kid went to a private school of sorts. Does that mean the kid was smart? A genius?

He would ask later on when he had the chance.

"Dinner's ready!" Ghin shouted.

"Coming!" He closed the TV before it continued any further and rose from his comfy couch. He decided to hunt tomorrow Monday after his morning workout.

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In the profession of evil, the abduction of a victim required three things: timing, workforce, and information. One cannot throw multiple kidnapping requests in terse successions without attracting unwanted attention. Depending on the competence of the hired hands, the probability of success will either lean towards the side of success or that of failure. And finally, information was paramount, preceding the first two. Knowledge of the target, his lifestyle, behavior, connections, etc., is the vital crux to any plan, to mitigate all threats of compromise that could spiral all efforts to waste - like, for example, All Might decides to pass by and catch onto the crime before completion.

Once one fulfilled all thrice criteria, success was inevitable - in most cases.

Villains carefully selected with moderate history for said trade prowled around the near-vacant building. Many riches at stake for their success, affluence to rise above and prosper.

None of them shared a distinctive uniform as all that applied were competitors in the same trade.

One of them stood tall, prominent, and bulking, another cut from the fabric of power-types, as his uniform barely managed to contain his build. His skin was black, his face armored with chitinous brown, eyes pulled so deep in his sockets that none can see even the whites of his sclera while his height stood two times taller than that of the average non-mutant type humans.

Another one of them was visually similar to a lamia, half her lower torso that of a serpent while the upper being humanoid. Her Quirk allows her serpentine half to adhere to any surface and traverse it, vertically or horizontally without the hindrance of gravity. She was currently scaling the walls of their target's home, slithering heavenwards with the silent grace of a spider as sticky slime trailed behind her path.

The others were just as unique in their threatening diversity, a squad of more than ten.

First, a two-person team will enter the front while the second team infiltrated around. Then a third team will search for the building's circuit breaker in the basement to cut off the building's power supply. One of the guys with them could jam electromagnetic waves, so any calls to the police or cries of help will fall on deaf ears, effectively cutting him off from the rest of the world.

Balnew, one of the only two visually pure humans in this group acting as the team's unspoken coordinator, possessing the ability to communicate and relay telepathic messages with those he touched.

He stood on standby in the interim as his sharp eyes lazily glazed over the building and his oral orifice yawning out his evident boredom. An early bird, he wordlessly grumbled in protest at the late hour, wishing that the client would've staged the abduction somewhat earlier than his late in the morning.

His stray hand reached behind and dug into his pants, scratching the scab blistering his butt meat without care - unbothered that the one beside him was watching with disgust scrunching his features.

"Really?"

She looked away, clicking her tongue in disgust, refusing to allow her reptilian eyes further suffering.

Her name was Cecylia, a hardened woman with slit pupils, her Quirk bestowing perception of heat behind solids. Her skill sets assigned her as the group's monitor, her eyes so to speak. However, her Quirk was not without limits. If used, her range of sight shrinks in a critical state of tunnel vision, and she cannot see five feet past the first layer.

Her job was to track the target's point of departure should he somehow slip past the trained vanguard. The client poured a lot of resources this time to ensure absolute success this time.

"I don't like you, either."

Another yawn pried his mouth open wide as tears trickled under his eyes while the others updated him on their progress. Team A managed to secure the rooftop entrance while Team B entered the generator room in the basement.

"Do you really have to make this… collaboration even more displeasing?" She hissed back.

"Hey, I'm just here for the money. Really, I don't care about any of you, so say what you want about me after we're done."

The employer offered three times the previous bounty for their success, his 'generosity' evidently derived from desperation since his case was entering its crescendo. However, his hired hands cared not for his fate, and whether he escaped the hammer of justice or dragged into the pits of Tartarus, only his money concerned their mutual interests.

"I hope you end up in a body pile." His apathy tugged a warning hiss from the woman - a trending allusion to the fate of various villains and heroes unfortunate enough to fall before the Hunter's eyes.

"Hah! You wish! No way in hell he'll greet me at this hour!"

Balnew laughed, finding the idea ridiculous.

Ever since Garou's first hunt, none of his victims fell past the twilight hours. To him, all human beings cannot escape their habits, and to him, the Hero Hunter was no exception to this rule.

"I hope he rips your arms off. Let's see how you'll live without scratching that filthy rear of yours."

Balnew chuckled at her quip.

"Yeah, keep on dreaming, lady."

Balnew shot a sideways wink behind at the woman. The sight of her gnashing her teeth and tense her fingers as if threatening to rip him apart only served to widen his smile further.

'[Balnew, we're ready to bust in the kid's room. Standby.]' The lamia woman informed from the rooftops.

The communicator grinned. Finally, it was time to finish the job and return home.

'[About time. Team B, cut the power already. It's time to bag this kid and cash in.]'

The others hung up as they proceeded to their objectives.

Now without anything to do, Balnew sighed as the boredom settled in like dust in the empty room. His thoughts wandered from his next goals or life plans, wondering if he should retire with this job's cash.

However, in his stray thinking, the fate of the previous workers crossed his mind. He grimaced at the remembrance of their destinies, mutilated like helpless meat tossed into the grinder. According to the only eyewitness, some guy fell from the sky and butchered them with his bare hands, though the details of his prevailing features did not reach public ears.

Balnew wondered what exactly did the previous team encounter to end up like meat displayed behind the glass pane in a butcher's shop. He doubted that an actual angel descended from the sky to punish the wicked.

'Don't think I'll encounter him this time.'

He shrugged. Whoever the person responsible, he sure wished he never met the guy. Miracles never happen twice as far as he was concerned.

"Alright, 'girl,' we're almost done here. Prepare to pack up and-"

'[Ahhhhh!]'

Cut off mid-speech, a sudden scream from one of the men inside rattled his composure.

'[Oi, what happened?!]'

Before he could demand a response, Cecilia shouted behind him.

"Something's coming this way!"

Throwing his head around, he saw the woman pointing up. Following her line of sight, he barely discerned it, but he somehow made out a shadowy silhouette looming above, falling.

Wait, it was falling above him, him being the guy under its landing point.

"Achskfj!" He spouted incoherent babbling as he screamed while stumbling/jumping aside the moment the thing fell on the floor with a splat.

Something just fell from the literal night sky, and its landing sounded wet. Looking down, right when the clouds moved to unveil the full moon, the body of the lamia revealed herself to the others, this time with her whole body caked in her lifeblood under the pale lunar light.

Eyes locked onto the body, the brutality of her condition froze Balnew and Cecylia in place, the level of violence frightfully reminiscent of the Hunter Amongst Villains. They shunned the thought, denying the possibility for the first few seconds. The two desperately attempted to reject that they lied within the Hunter's sights at this very moment.

Creaking his trembling head to his coworker, he silently whispered, "You don't think…"

Cecylia, her face as stiffened as his, tentatively shook her head in absolute denial without a word.

Silence took hold as the man tried to contact the others, but heard more screams as well, followed by the sound of windows shattering when three figures flew out, bodies tumbling with the sound of snapping bone and squelching moist meat as well as crimson smears trailed in their descent.

The sight of their coworkers, even the muscled brute of the scene, lied down, two facedown and one faceup. The face of their powerhouse revealed broken teeth, blood trickling out his lips, and the bones of his face half-caved in.

"Oh god," Cecylia whispered as the nightmare ignited, the terror taking hold like flames in the oil field.

"No, no. No no no no. That shouldn't be possible! He never hunts past morning!" He shouted, desperately denying the reality before him as his eyes grew manic, darting without aim or focus as his pupils trembled in anxiety while cold drops of sweat spilled from his pores.

Their job was meant to be simple. Take the kid, get paid, return home a rich man. Not to become part of a live horror show as he considered palter his obligations and run. Casting a glance at Cecylia, he could tell from her wide, staring eyes that she shared the same idea.

When more cries howled from the building, the duo did not waste time turning tail and fled the scene. They do not want to be here. They do not want to join the bodies under Garou's feet.

Footfalls and chunky heels slammed the sidewalk as they exerted their legs to their very limits, faces painted with tangible fear, tears streaming down their eyes and some snot dripping their noses, as they sprinted in their shutting the world from their senses sustained via their pure sense of self-preservation.

They ran and ran, the screams behind them fading in the widening distance, sprinting past the red light and the rare cars at their current hour. They turned around one corner, then another, continuing to zigzag around the concrete jungle until they rolled right into a shadowed alley. Protected by the darkness, the two kept running without aim past trashcans and smearing filth until they encountered the alley's wall - a dead end.

With nowhere to run, Cecylia quickly threw back a glance, seeing no demon behind their tail.

"I," she panted and noticed her expended breath, "think we've lost him."

She sighed, releasing all tension from her muscles as she doubled over the moment the exhaustion caught up. Gandering her cohort, she paused when she saw the man bleeding, half of his teeth missing from his jaw with his head held in the hands of another shadowed figure, his right eye gleaming gold within the darkness.

Not a single word gestated in her throat, no words coming to mind except the wondering of how the Hero Hunter preyed on her group's acting leader under her nose. It was a horror flick made real, Cecylia the victim while Garou was the monster.

Before she could collapse and beg for mercy, darkness submerged her like a flash of black light, her only memory being crunching pain rattling her skull followed by the sound of crunching stone behind her.

Silence returned as the Hunter proceeded to pick up their bodies by the legs, one in each hand, and continued to drag them away - the sound of leather and polyester slid abrasively with the asphalt. He was not in the mood for another pile, as his sleep was interrupted so early in the morning. He would make an example of them in a different approach.

---------

Hidden under the mantling night behind the safe walls of his silent office, the only source of illumination being the dim ceiling light, excitement rattled within throughout his bones and kept him awake, desperately awaiting the news of success to arrive. Unable to sleep due to the tension, Fuai intermittently rapped his fingers together with impatience, his eyes gazing past the window pane leading to the bird's eyes view of the city of Tokyo, this time blanketed by night with a sea of stars swimming through the sky with near-immobile pace.

He had plans for the child, one of them was breaking his will along with… relieving his stress in vengeance for what his blasted whore of an aunt put him through. He would pour oil over her life and set it aflame with despair unlike no other and he will laugh above the ashes and revel in her suffering to some.

His eyes wandered, shifting from building to building in his crepuscular room, but, barely from the dim light, he saw a fading reflection of sudden darkness opening a hole in the empty air behind him, of which spilled purple haze around the circular rims of the pitch-black void.

He recognized that tear in reality anywhere, but why would All For One sent his Warper to his office? When the only plausible answer struck home, his eyes widened as wide as dinner plates as he quickly spun around his rotary chair half-full circle to greet Kurogiri as he emerged of whom stood calmly in the center of the dim lighting.

"Kurogiri! Do not worry, for I am almost done on my side! Tell All For One that I am-"

Before he could finish, another dark hole opened up inches from his face, its diameter as large as an orange's, and a gnarled, wrinkled hand pale in color sprang from the infinite abyss and wrapped its twig-like fingers around his face - the middle finger just centimeters above his forehead.

"Why, Shigaraki?! I was almost done! If you gave me more time, I would've-"

"Bring more trouble to Sensei after failing to cover your tracks. Don't feed your crap to me, you disgusting pig." Tomura finished for him, reminding the pig of his current standing.

The vortex widened as if stretching open, making room as the rest of Shigaraki's body spilled through until only his face emerged, masked by the preserved hand of his 'father.'

"Sensei has a message for you."

Fuai's brows quivered with fright, his teeth rattling as sweat poured profusely out his pores.

"The League of Villains will no longer tolerate your disgusting presence and bumbling arrogance. Thank you for all the work you've done until now."

Upon finishing, Tomura tapper the pig's forehead with his middle finger, entirely holding Fuai in his hands.

"No! Pleashhhweerrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" He squealed, his voice high in pitch like that of an actual pig before he started to gurgle on his flesh when his body crumbled.

His skin fell off, cracked and crumbling from the muscle before the rest followed and joined the epidermis. Tendons decomposed, skipping the rotting stage and heading straight towards decomposition. Every fiber of his skin, tissue, and bones, all collapsed, sadistically and gradually, into a puddle of blood mixed with almost every other parts of his body surrounding the base of Fuai's former chair. Former lifeblood drenching the furniture head to toe, the only limb intact from the bodily decay was the stubby hand of the pig lying at the epicenter of the cushion.

"Kurogiri. We have work to do. Help me clean up the pig's mess."

Tomura ordered as he and Kurogiri proceeded to wipe every evidence of his involvement with the Union and what will soon become the League of Villains.