Wake Up to Reality!

1 year later.

It had now been five years since Dante started his new life. Although there were some little mishaps here and there, most of his life up to now had been smooth sailing. Things in the Dream World were progressing in the right direction, the addition of new inhabitants a year ago had contributed to the expansion of the world. Now, one could find inside Dream World multiple majestic cities, famous places of some animes, mangas, and other types of fiction.

Dante had shared a bit of his authority over Dream World with the different living beings inside of it, this bit of authority was only enough to allow them to create buildings. When it came to the task of creating lives, only Dante could do it, and since he liked to introduce more and more lives inside of his world, he soon decided to introduce multiple other types of creatures, making his world even more mesmerizing.

Training-wise, Dante had made a lot of progress too! Although only one year had passed in the real world, our main character had spent a whole seven years training in the Dream World, it was plenty of time for him to master pretty much all the skills he worked on. Be it the Hinokami Kagura, Haki, Rokushiki, or his swordsmanship and hand to hand combat training, Dante became extremely proficient in all of them, he could already go head to head skill wise with some of his teachers in terms of skill!

The only thing Dante was missing at the moment, was something he didn't know the importance of... the mind. That's right, although he made tremendous progress in terms of skill, Dante had made zero progress in terms of mental strength. Up till now, he had always used his authority over Dream World to give himself a mind strong enough to endure the harsh training he had to go through. The problem with that was that Dante made absolutely no progress on the mental aspect of his real body, resulting in a discrepancy between his real mind and his mind in Dream World. It was as if there were two different Dantes, one who went through seven years of harsh training, giving him a strong mind, and another Dante who did nothing and had never experienced harsh moments.

Unfortunately for him, this discrepancy would cost him a lot in a near future...

Other than Dante, Hayato, Ren, and Kioko too had started to train hard. Since the foundation was important, Dante proposed they to work on the same skills as him so that they could have a solid base to rely on, which would allow them to work on different skills that resonated with them in the future.

Among the three, Hayato and Ren were the ones to train the least at the beginning. Since they were still kids at heart, Hayato and Ren preferred to explore the Dream World together and talk with the different beings living in it, it was only after seeing Kioko work hard that they decided to train seriously. Kioko on the other hand was extremely focused in her training from the start, she was even discovered to be a genius when it came to learning new skills, she developed a good relationship with a lot of beings roaming the Dream World, a lot of them even took their time to mentor her personally. Although the trio did not develop as much has Dante in terms of skills, they sure gained a lot of experience in the ways of life, people could not consider them simple five years old anymore!

To summarise it all, this year was a big year for the dream family in terms of skill, unfortunately they didn't show that much progress in the real world.

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Thanks to All Might being excellent at his job, it wasn't wrong to say that the chances of meeting a villain while outside were lower than before.

Today was a beautiful day, the sky was clear and the sun was at its zenith. Although it has now been five years since Dante's new life started, he had never put a foot outside of the orphanage, and there were multiple reasons for that, one of them being his wish of being low-key. Thanks to its efforts, Dante had managed to reduce by a bit the attention the HPSC had on him, and he sure wanted it to continue that way.

Today though, Dante had made an exception and he had asked his caregivers if he could go to a hero greet and meet event that would happen not far from the orphanage. The hero wasn't an important character from the original plot, nor was Dante a fan of this random hero.

The truth was that since he was born, Dante had never had contact with a hero except the ones he saw on tv, so he was extremely curious at this point, he wanted to see a hero costume, he wanted to see how they behaved and many more things. Finding it to be a good opportunity for the children to go out and have fun, the orphanage's staff accepted to bring him there, they even decided to bring other kids, Dante even knew some of them.

The mood was quite good amongst the children, going out wasn't something they had the opportunity to do a lot so they were excited, even more so after knowing they were going to see a real hero.

"Wahaha! I can't wait, we are going to see a real hero!"

The name of the little girl who just spoke was Mirai. Mirai was a cheerful child, unfortunately for her, her parents died during a terrorist attack orchestrated by a group of villains. Although she managed to survive thanks to the timely arrival of a hero, it still took her years before she was as able to smile again. Today she was barely nine years old, making her one of the oldest among the children. She was especially happy today because she was finally about to see a hero in the flesh! Although he wasn't the one who saved her back then, she still was barely able to hold her excitement.

"Hahaha, alright calm down Mirai-chan, we will be there soon."

This person was the volunteer caregiver charged with bringing the kids to the event, his name was Shota. Shota wasn't a full-time working employee of the orphanage, actually, he was an university student that loved kids and decided to work part-time at the orphanage, in hope of giving love to children who lost their families.

"Calm down Mirai-nee, it's just a hero, what's the use of acting like this."

This time it was Dante's friend, Ren, who talked, and he was soon followed by his partner in crime Hayato.

"Ha, who are you fooling Ren? You are literally trembling from excitement hahaha!"

"Mmph, what about you? You didn't even manage to sleep last night!"

Seeing his friends acting like that made Dante happy. Although his three friends had spent the equivalent of seven years in the Dream World and had seen plenty of wonders, a dream wasn't something easily forgettable, their dream of becoming a hero was burning even more than before.

"..."

Kioko as usual was the perfect representation of stoicism, although she looked gloomier than ever because of the sun... yeah, she still had not been able to get rid of that weakness of her.

....

....

....

After twenty minutes of traveling, the little group finally arrived at their destination, it was a five story building decorated with giant posters of a hero wearing a red costume.

The place was packed with people, there were children, teenagers, adults, and even some elderly, the energy he felt from the place surprised Dante a lot.

'Wow, there must be at least five hundred people here! Who would have thought that even a random hero could gather such a crowd... Heroes really are loved in this world.'

The event started thirty minutes later, when the star of the show finally arrived. The hero in question was a man around 185 cm, he wore a red skin-tight costume and from his musculature, anyone could tell that he could pack a punch. From what little information Dante was able to gather, he learned that this man's hero name was Strong Punch, although quite lame, his alias was very fitting since this man's quirk gave him the ability to double the power of his punches.

"Waaaaah, it's him! It's Strong Punch!"

Finally being able to see a real hero, Mirai could not contain herself anymore and her eyes started to tear.

When the hero went onto the stage, the crowd immediately started to cheer, even Ren, Hayato and the other children of the orphanage joined the crowd, Dante and Kioko being the only ones who stayed calm.

'Well, it reminds me of that one time I went to that famous singer concert...'

It had now been ten minutes since the event started. The concept was quite simple, everybody who wanted to would have the opportunity to go up on stage and greet the hero, it looked a lot like the greet and meet events for idols in some Asian contries.

After another twenty minutes, about a hundred people were able to go up on stage, it was then that Dante felt something grabbing his sleeve, when he turned around, he saw that it was Kioko who had grabbed him. Strangely, the girl who always had the same gloomy expression on her face looked even gloomier than usual, making Dante a bit worried.

"Kioko, what's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"

To that, the little girl said,

"Dante-kun... I feel weird... I feel like something bad... is about to happen..."

Dante didn't understood what she meant.

"What are you saying Kioko? Do you need to go t-"

But before he could finish his sentence, sounds of exclamation started to come out of the crowd. When Dante looked up to find the source of the commotion, his eyes caught something that deeply shook him to the core.

BZZZT!!!

OOM!!!

Before the eyes of the crowd, a single dark purple portal opened on the stage, right next to Strong Punch. His instincts honed by his years of career allowed the hero the react quickly, he immediately took his distance from the portal, just in time to see a dark grey creature come out of it.

Somewhere in the crowd, Dante froze the moment he saw the creature. Although it looked a bit different from his memories, he still recognized it pretty easily.

'Humanoid body with a visible brain... There is no doubt, it's a nomu! But Why?! It's too early! The plot is only supposed to happen in ten years!'

On the stage, the nomu that just appeared did not move, his eyes observing the crowd. When Strong Punch saw the weird creature just standing there, he decided to try and communicate with it while still maintaining his distance.

"You, who are you? What are you doing here?!"

Seeing the hero take his distance from the creature, the crowd finally realized that this was not part of the show, and so panic started to slowly creep on the people's faces.

'This weird creature appeared out of nowhere, the culprit must be a warp-type quirk user! I don't know what's happening but the priority is to evacuate the civilians as soon as possible!'

After he decided on his next course of action, Strong Punch made a signal to the security team in charge of maintaining order at the event, telling them to evacuate the civilians.

Twenty meters away from the stage, Dante still had not recovered from his shock, his thoughts completely paralyzing him.

'H-How?! Shouldn't nomus first appearance be at the USJ incident?! D-Did I do something that changed the story?! No! Impossible, I haven't done anything significant enough to warrant such a change! I-"

As Dante was lost in the chaos of his mind, a voice reached out to him.

"DANTE-KUN!!!"

This sudden scream finally brought Dante's out of his reverie, Kioko's worried eyes being the first thing he saw.

"Dante-kun! Pull yourself together! This thing gives me a dangerous feeling! We need to leave! Now!"

Kioko's usual poker face was absent, she looked worried about the situation.

"L-Leave... Y-Yeah, W-We need to leave! Quickly! Ren! Hayato! Sho-"

But before he could say anything more, Dante saw something that completely rooted him where he was.

On the stage, Strong Punch who still had got no reaction from the nomus, decided to try and close the distance between them. But the moment he moved forward, the nomu in front of him suddenly flashed, moving too fast for Strong Punch to react.

BANG!!!!

SPLAT!!!!

Under the nomu's attack, Strong Punch's head... exploded like a melon, sending blood and brain matter splashing towards the crowd.

...

...

...

Seeing Strong Punch decapitated body slowly falling on stage, the entire area went silent.

Twenty meters away, Dante slowly lifted his right hand and touched his face. When he retrieved his hand, blood and a piece of the brain were caught in his finger. It took him a couple of seconds before his brain finally processed the information, and when it did...

"BLEURGH!!!"

Dante lost it.

"AAAAAAH!!!! R-R-RUN!!!"

The crowd lost it.

"*SCREEEEEECH*!!!!!"

And finally... the nomu lost it.

BOOOM!!! BOOOM!!! BOOOM!!!!

As the crowd started to run towards the different exits in panic, multiple explosions happened at the different exits of the building and multiple nomus started to pour into the building.

"*ROOOOAR*!!!"

"*SCREEECH*!!!"

What happened next was something that would forever mark those who would have the chance to survive what was about to happen.

But the question was... Would someone even survive?

Without hesitation... and without mercy... the army of nomus...

Started a massacre.

BANG!!!

"Aaaargh!!!"

BOOM!!!

"HELP!!!-HEL-"

CRUNCH!!!

"NOO-"

SPLAT!!!

The moment the nomus started to tear through the crowd, Ren, Hayato, and Kioko saw blood splash everywhere, heads, arms and legs flying over their heads.

The first one to react was the one who wanted to be a hero the most. Although Ren's dream was to become a hero as great as All Might and protect everybody, right now, every cell of his body was sending him only one message...

"FLEE!! WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!! FAST!!!"

BOOM!!!

The first ones to react amidst the explosions and the chaos were Hayato and Kioko.

"Y-Yes! We need do leave or we will die!"

Soon though, the trio realized that apart from the three of them, Shota and the other children from the orphanage were all frozen in fear, making Ren curse at the situation. Knowing that he could not count on their caregiver, Ren turned towards the one who had always been able to keep his calm no matter the situation, he turned towards the one he knew had powers strong enough to get them out of here alive...

"Damn it! Dante! We need to wake them up and move! If we stay here, we will all die! Do you hear me, Dan-"

Unfortunately for him though, his sight was only met by the pathetic sight of the man he had decided to put his hopes on, down on his knees, his body violently trembling and eyes without focus.

Seeing the one he had always respected in such a state really shocked Ren... but he knew he had no time to waste. Fueled by his survival instinct and his seven years of training in Dream World, Ren made a decision in a split second and turned his head towards Hayato and Kioko, and then started directing their retreat.

"Hayato! Kioko! Dante is out! We need to do it ourselves!

Hayato! You take Dante and stay close to us!

Kioko! Go and wake up Shota-nii and the rest!

While you do that, I will look for an exit!

Be fast guys, we move as soon as you are done!"

"YES!!"

BOOM!!!!

After giving their tasks to his friend, Ren's finally had some time to assess the situation. Not letting the explosions happening here and there distract him, Ren dived into his memories and remembered some words taught to him by Thor, a strong man he met in Dream World who always had some new stories about the epic battles he fought in.

'Listen human Ren, when you are on the battlefield, you must not let fear control you and chaos overwhelm you! In more cases than not, the road to your survival is the one where you feel the most fear and where chaos is the most abundant!'

BOOM!!!

Although Ren was brought back to the present by an explosion that happened only fifteen meters away from him, almost sending him flying, Ren took a deep breath and the world around him started to slow down.

In this slowed-down world, Ren was able to observe everything that was happening with clarity. A woman's head that got chopped, a man's torso that got pierced through, a flying leg that impaled an elderly woman, a child that got crushed, a group of security agents trying to fight back...

'THERE!! There is a crack in the monsters' blocade!!"

After finding something, Ren wasted no time and screamed at his two friends.

"I found an exit! There is a gap in the monsters' defense just ahead of us! We need to get there fast!"

Hearing Ren word's, Shota, who had finally gotten out of his stupor thanks to Kioko, could not help but disagree.

"No! That's too dangerous! We will have to go through the entire hall just to reach there, that's suicide!"

Hearing him, Ren was furious.

"But Shota-nii!! That's the best way believe me! All the other exits are well protected, we will die if we choose one of them!"

Hearing a kid give him advice during such a crisis infuriated the young adult.

"ENOUGH!! Ren, I'm older than you and it's my responsibility to bring you all to safety!! So now please shut up and follow me!!"

Without even giving him time to answer, Shota turned around before leaving with the other kids.

"Shota-nii!!! No, don't go there, you will die!! Shota-nii!!"

Seeing his friends head towards danger, Ren could not take it and prepared to run towards them to bring them back, but he was stopped by Kioko.

"Ren! You can't! They made their choice, we made ours! We need to focus on ourselves and get out of here alive!

Although she may be labeled as cruel in the future, Kioko didn't care, all that was important to her right now was the survival of her friends!

BOOM!!

Seeing some monsters getting close to them, Hayato too started to persuade Ren.

"She is right Ren! We need to focus on our survival! Dante is still out, the longer we stay here, the easier of a target we become!!"

Hearing his friend's words and seeing Dante's appearance, Ren gritted his teeth and finally turned his eyes away from Shota and the rest.

"Alright! Follow me you too! We need to go through the entire hall! Stay close to the ground and scream if you are in danger! I will take the front, Kioko-chan you take the rear, and Hayato you stay in the middle, we need to protect Dante at all costs!!""

"Alright!!"

"Good, now let's go!!"

BOOOM!!!

With Ren in front, Hayato in the middle, and Kioko behind, the trio started to run as fast as they could in direction of the place where chaos was the most prominent!

Just as Ren started to run, followed by Hayato who carried Dante on his back, and then Kioko who was following behind, a sliver of light seemed to appear in Dante's eyes. With the bit of clarity, he managed to regain, Dante was able to look behind him, his sight going past Kioko and landing on Shota's group, just in time to see something that would haunt him forever.

"Shota-nii... why is Sho-"

Before he could finish his sentence, Dante saw Shota, who was running towards an exit door, his entire upper body get blown off by a nomu's projectile.

BANG!!!

SPLAT!!

"SHOT-"

And before he could even register the kind university student's death, Dante's eyes then caught the site of the little girl Mirai blown to bits by an explosion, decimating the rest of the orphans that were with her.

BOOM!!!!

For a moment, Dante's brain stopped working, the scene of Mirai being blown to pieces looping in his mind, her eyes begging for help the moment before her death.

SILENCE.

This last horrific image was for Dante the last straw that broke the camel's back, suddenly a crazed light appeared in his eyes and he started to flail around like a maniac.

"Why why why why why, it wasn't supposed to happen, wasn't supposed to happen, not the plot not the plot, not the plot hahahahahahaha!!!!"

When Kioko, who was running in the rear, saw Dante's crazed behavior, she started to panic.

"Guys! Dante is having a panic attack!"

When Hayato felt Dante move around crazily on his back, screaming, laughing, and even hitting him, he decided to make the best thing to do in such a situation.

BANG!!!

Without pity, Hayato grabbed Dante's collar and slamed him hard on the ground in front of him, effectively knocking him out.

"HAYATO!!!"

"That was necessary!! We can't afford to be distracted right now!!"

Knowing he was right, Ren and Kioko both gritted their teeth and started to run even faster.

In this chaotic situation, a little group of five-year-old children braved multiple dangers and ran towards one of the exits.

Currently, be it Ren, Hayato, or Kioko, all three of them were extremely stressed. Even though they trained in Dream World, we have to remember that they were only five years old! The only thing propelling the trio forward at this point was their will.

'''I NEED TO PROTECT THEM!!!!'''

Right now, they were all fighting to protect one another, all ready to lay their lives for their friends.

"TEN SECONDS!!"

After running a hundred meters, the group finally reached their destination, and to them, it looked like hell.

BANG!!!

"Aaaargh!!!"

BOOM!!!

"Asshole!! Die you monster!!!"

BANG!! BANG!! BANG!!!

In front of them, a group of fifteen security agents was currently fighting for their lives against a group of around twenty nomus. Firearms, quirks, melee weapons... The security agents were fighting with everything they had. Unfortunately for them, the nomus were stronger and had more numbers, it was clear that it was only a question of minutes before the guards were wiped out.

"Hayato! Kioko! We are passing through! Do not stop no matter what!"

""Roger!!"

With great courage, the trio charge through the battlefield! Thanks to their little height and the nomus being too focused on the guards, the trio was able to get closer and closer to the exit, they were now only ten meters away from it.

'''We can do it!'''

But just as they were getting close, a guard on their right suddenly noticed them.

'Kids?!'

And he wasn't the only one, one of the two nomus he was fighting also noticed the kids.

'Shit! He saw them!'

Without warning, the nomu abandoned his opponent and charged at the kids!

"ROOOAAAR!!!"

"SHIT!!! CAREFUL KIDS!!!"

Hayato was the first to notice that they had become a target. When he saw the nomu charging towards them with its teeth out, the world around him immediately slowed down.

'I am the target.

I will be hit in two seconds.

I don't have time to dodge.

I gotta protect Dante.'

In this tiny time frame he had, Hayato analyzed the situation without any emotions and he took the best course of action according to him.

"REN!!"

Without missing a beat, Hayato hurled Dante towards Ren, and he braced himself for the impact.

"HAYATO!!"

The next scene caused Ren who had caught Dante and Kioko's hearts to skip a beat.

BANG!!

CRUNCH!!

"BLEURGH!!"

The Nomu's hit propeled Hayato into the air, blood splashing out of his mouth, the sound of his bones breaking resounding in the chaos.

"HAYATO!!!""

"KID!!!"

"NO!!"

"SAVE THE KIDS!!!"

At that point, everybody in the area had noticed the group of children. As if they had found the greatest delicacy in the world, the nomus started to flock toward the kids. Seeing this, all the guards took a unanimous decision.

"BROTHERS!! EVEN IF IT KILLS US, THESE KIDS MUST LIVE!!!"

""""""" YES!!!!!!""""""""

Just as the nomu who had hit Hayato was about to kill the child, a guard appeared behind it and plunged his knife into the nomu's brain, effectively killing it!

SLASH!!!

"DIE YOU BASTARD!!"

Seeing this, Ren was about to thank the man but before he could...

CRUNCH!!!!!

The man got his neck brutally crushed by the second nomu he was fighting, killing him instantly.

"MISTER!!!"

But before he could say anything else...

"DON'T STOP KID!!! WE WILL HOLD THEM OFF!!! GOO!!!"

Knowing that staying there would only lead to more deaths on the guards side, Ren gritted his teeth so hard he almost cracked his teeth and started to run away with tears wildly flowing out of his eyes.

"KIOKO!! Take Hayato and let's get out of here!!"

"On it!!"

Kioko immediately ran towards Hayato who was now unconscious. Upon seeing his broken body laying there, bathing in its blood, Kioko's face lost all color and she couldn't help but gasp in horror.

"Hayato!!"

Knowing that time was of the essence, she quickly took Hayato and started to run behind Ren, tears flowing down her face.

"BROTHERS!! LAY DOWN YOUR LIVES!!"

Determined to protect the kids, the guards started to attack the nomus without reserve, completely disregarding their safety.

BANG!!

BOOM!!

As the duo continued to run with their friends on their backs, the massacre in the room continued. By now, the room was completely red from all the blood spilled, and unfortunately it was in the grand majority of the blood of the civilians and guards fleeing or fighting for their lives.

BANG!!

"We made it!!"

After they finally managed to get out of the battlefield, the first thing Ren did after bursting open the door, was to turn around and scream as loud as he could...

"MISTERS!!!!! WE MADE IT!!!!! THANK YOU ALL!!! I WILL NEVER FORGET WHAT YOU DID!!!!!!"

Hearing Ren's scream, all the guards that were still alive and fighting smiled.

"Hahaha!! Brothers!! I don't know why but death doesn't look that scary anymore hahaha!!!"

"Hahahahaha, you are right brother!!!"

"YEAH HAHAHA!! LET'S KILL THIS FUCKERS!!!"

"YEAH!! LET'S MAKE OUR FAMILIES PROUD HAHAHA!!!"

As if invigorated, the guards resumed their fights with even more passion. The guards weren't stupid, they all knew that they were probably going to die in the next moments, but...

"Such a death ain't that bad"

BOOM!!!

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After Ren and Kioko finally managed to flee from the building, they didn't dare to stop and ran as far away as they could from the building. Ren thought of their next course of action as they were running.

"We need to inform the police and the heroes as fast as possible! Maybe they can save some of them if we are fast enough!"

"Yes, we need to find a house! We can use their phone!"

And so, Ren and Kioko continued to run. When they finally arrived at the door of the nearest house, Ren who was exhausted and about to collapse, used the last bit of energy he had left to bang the door and scream.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

"HEY!! HELP!! HELP!! WE NEED HELP!!"

Soon, a middle age woman with an apron opened the door.

'What's with all the r-"

When she saw two children covered in blood in front of her and two others unconscious on their backs, the woman understood that something was wrong.

"Oh my god! What happened to you!"

"Mam! Monsters attacked us, and a lot of people are dead! We need to call the police and the heroes! Quick!"

Seeing that it was serious, the woman quickly took the kids inside the house and took her phone, and dialled the police.

When Ren and Kioko saw that, the last bit of energy they had finally left them and they collapsed, causing the woman who was on the phone with the police to panic.

"Oh god!! We also need an ambulance, quickly!!"

That way, the horrible experience that would forever remain in the minds of the four friends came to an end.