The Grandest Entrance of A Villain

Apparently, he's a hitman now.

As for his newest target, a sufficient backstory was provided to him by Jiugo, who worked as an assistant for the founder of Esuha City's most renowned Pharmaceutical company. It still baffled him how Shisei was connected to an illegal drug lord and a legal drug company.

In any case, the target, Kuzubuta Busu, was in his late 20's and was a fairly attractive man if his pictures were anything to go by.

The reason he ended up in the kill list of the richest man in Esuha was because Kuzubuta accidentally impregnated Miss Furusato Hiori, the founder's only daughter, and ran away, refusing to acknowledge his mistake.

The founder only learned about the news after his daughter committed suicide from desperation a week after losing the child to miscarriage caused by stress and depression, unable to tell her father because of shame and guilt.

After the founder investigated Kuzubuta, a great majority of his past actions came to light, including the fact that Kuzubuta was only using Miss Furusato's connections and money to further develop in his career and also the fact that he was doing the same with three other women.

And that wasn't even the main course yet.

Kuzubuta was also a pedophile who they found to have records of molesting and raping multiple children which the HPSC had 'helpfully' covered up.

To say the least, the founder was enraged, causing the current situation where Mikumo was employed as a hitman.

Truthfully, if Kuzubuta was an ordinary person, Mikumo would have declined the job but, apparently, Kuzubuta was a pro-hero.

How did such a trash become a hero? If Mikumo wasn't already disgusted with the hero society, he sure was now.

Also, it appeared that Hollywood movies where employers would pay hitmen with stacks of cash in a briefcase weren't entirely true as Mikumo held an unnamed bank card filled with half of the mission's payment. He'd recieve the other half upon completing the mission which had a deadline set by the end of the week.

Though, as he was prone to procrastination, he decided to complete it immediately before he ended up forgetting about it.

Another point to add, from the original payment of 250k, he had managed to hike up the amount to 350k due to the limited time and the fact that the target was a pro-hero. A poor excuse, but a hero nonetheless. Fortunately, the guy was permanently stationed in Esuha City unless in the case of an emergency.

So, by the time it was 2 AM of this week's Wednesday, Mikumo found himself outside the window of Pro-Hero Groundshatter's appartment, having found the hero's real address through his helpful owls since the address provided to him by Jiugo ended up being a smokescreen.

Ever since the incident a few days ago where he had to release hundreds of owls all over the city in order to search for Haruse as soon as possible, he had decided to permanently release the owls throughout the whole of Esuha to act as his eyes. Of course, such action took a toll on his mind but, with the constant supply of Wish now, he managed to keep them up.

As Mikumo stood in the silent balcony amidst the freezing winter chill, he contemplated how to approach his first hitman job. If he were to do it as a proper hitman, it would be imperative that he do it quietly, kill and run, hassle-free.

In doing so, that would mean there would be close to nothing for the police to identify him with, which, if he were planning on keeping his identity a secret, would be optimal. But, quite a lot of people already knew of his villain identity due the circulating video of him in villain.net, and, despite the secrecy of the site, he knew it wouldn't take long for the authorities to find out about him one way or another. And he already had a 'Different quirk, not me' alibi separating his villain and real identities anyways.

Plus, if the police weren't able to identify him as the culprit, they'd end up investigating other possible subjects, which would lead them to investigate his employer, Naisho Medical Company's founder, and subsequently, Akatsuki. Which won't be good for him since he'd possibly lose his current job. Both of them.

If he were to cause a ruckus though, that would focus the police's attention on him alone, due to him being a new villain with a volatile quirk and, having an anti-hero agenda. Or so they'd think. Subsequently, they'd ignore the other possible subjects in favor of capturing him.

Upon doing so, he'd be putting himself in the spotlight, marketing himself as a target for heroes, which would limit his movements and freedom considerably but, in return, more people would know about him as well, including possible employers. Another plus would be to increase the anti-hero and anti-society villain count across the country.

More chaos meant more business for him. It was a cycle of causing trouble and making money.

In any case, it worked just well for him since he never expected to work for Akatsuki for too long and was thinking of ways to gradually ease himself into the darker lifestyle, so this circumstance fitted right with his plans. Though, he was still contemplating why it was Shisei of all people who opened this door for him. Not that he was complaining or anything.

So the pros outweigh the cons.

Great. Let's cause mayhem!

...

It was a little past 7 am and Stendhal was on his way to another job interview which he most likely would fail again, having just gotten off from the train when all of a sudden, the ground began to shake and crumble.

It was then that he caught sight of a tall man in a flashy green and gold costume standing in the middle of a pedestrian crossing, both of his hands flat on the ground amd using his quirk to cause tremors and spread out cracks through gravel.

A hero. Stendhal quickly realized.

'Great. Barely five days in from having moved to a new city and he runs into a local hero. Just his luck, right?' Was the first thought in his mind.

Then, the second thought came in. 'What the hell is that hero doing?! He's causing massive damage in a public location where tens of civilians are currently present! And on a road, no less! Even if he were in pursuit of a villain, shouldn't public safety be prioritized over capture?!'

He could practically feel all the little remaining respect he had for limelight heroes draining with every passing second. Every hero should be like All Might! Otherwise, they'd only be desecrating the meaning of being a hero.

See, even if this place wasn't exactly the busiest place in the city, it was still fairly populated, with buildings and establishments nearby. Needless to say, even if it was still fairly early in the morning, a lot of people were already up and about, with adults heading off to work and children to school.

If the hero couldn't control their quirk properly, they were bound to cause some casualty.

"It's Groundshatter!" Someone from the already forming crowd of onlookers yelled, presumably pointing out the hero's identity.

"If he's here, then is there a villain attack?"

A commotion was steadily forming as civilians watched and cheered for the hero instead of heading to safety, opting to pull out their phones with their cameras flashing. And Stendhal could already tell how much the hero was happily soaking up the attention, his lips formed in a smug grin.

Stendhal clicked his tongue in annoyance, his fingers twitching with an urge to kill the hero. If only there weren't so many eyes around. Instead, he just turned around, looking for a discrete route to avoid the crowd, not wanting to be late for his interview, bust or not.

"So, I attacked you once in a secluded location to avoid needless casualty and your response was to run towards the biggest crowd you could find to cause more chaos?" A cold voice stated over the chatter of the crowd, causing Stendhal to pause and turn around in shock. "I can't say I'm surprised since it's you we're talking about but, I'm a little disgusted. Is this really what a hero is supposed to be?"

Standing atop a lamppost was a person in a bunny hoodie, his face hidden behind a black medical mask, only revealing a pair of piercing green eyes. It shocked Stendhal how this person escaped his senses, going unnoticed despite his easily noticeable position.

"Shut up, villain! Your words will do nothing to change what you really are, a villain!" Groundshatter grinned, seemingly unaffected by the villain's words as other heroes began to show up to provide support. "And that is what you will always amount to. Just another villain to be arrested and locked up."

It seemed as though Groundshatter felt confident upon the arrival of other heroes, thinking that they would make quick work of this villain and be done with it within ten minutes.

With a calculative gaze, the villain assessed the heroes who began to surround him and barricaded the crowd away from the scene.

The way he looked around as if to take note of all the people watching him and the amount of heroes present made Stendhal incredibly confused. Just what was he doing?

From the little amount of information that he had of this particular villain, he knew that he shouldn't be the type of person who'd want a lot of attention on them so, what exactly was he planning?

Did he want to attract a crowd purposely? If so, why?

"I see. So that is your answer." Bunny responded, and, with a single hand outstretched, the crowd watched with bated breaths as metal spikes emerged from the ground, trapping and separating the heroes in a near intricate birdcage.

Trap, not kill.

It was pitiful and nearly laughable how easily these so-called Pro-heroes got trapped immobilized despite their attempts to escape.

They were totally outclassed, making it obvious to even the densest person in the crowd how much power a single villain held over seven of their dearly held heroes.

"You who refuse quick salvation to the bitter end, I shall give a public trial and execution." The villain stated blandly, looking down at the hero with emotionless eyes.

At that moment, Stendhal thought, if the heavens ever sent down a holy judge upon them, then this person must be it.