CHAPTER 231(The Calm After)

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CHAPTER START---

"Fuck..." Horizon mutters as he sits on the floor, inside a small crater.

The port island was a complete mess, torn up not just from the metal storm and Wolfram's Quirk, but from his reaction to it all.

He now sat in this crater, with his jacket shredded apart and pants torn up, exposing the body glove beneath.

His visor was cracked, but still intact as not to reveal any of the features beneath, even as a small steam of blue energy vapor was seeping out of it.

Both his hands, up to the elbows, were drenched in blood and bits of flesh, but he himself was completely fine, even now as he tried to catch his breath and focus his mind.

Feeling himself crashing after the high he just experienced.

In the small crater, at the middle of it, was Wolfram, or at least what was left of him.

His face was smashed in, no, it was missing.

His head and upper torso were beaten until it looked like ground meat, his right arm was mangled with chunks of flesh being torn off.

And his left arm was completely torn off from the shoulder, the separate limb resting only a few meters away within the crater.

His entire torso suffered the same fate, being beaten into a pile of unidentifiable meat, with bits and pieces of his guts scattered about.

Taking a few deep breaths Horizon gets up, swaying side to side, feeling as if he's experiencing the worst hangover imaginable.

He looks down at his bloody hands, and decides not to think about that right now, instead reaching up to his visor and tapping the side of it.

"Call Pantu," he commands, while walking out of the crater over to Melissa.

Swaying with each steps he feels his legs burning as he steps out and sees the girl, laying on the floor with some cuts and bruises across her body.

"Horizon," Pantu's voice is projected into his visor. "I assume this is good news..."

"Not particularly," he says while walking over to her.

"Did you retrieve Melissa Shield?" Pantu asks.

"Yes, she's right here," he steps on Melissa, not using his Quirk right now but nudging her, hard enough to make her groan, which she does. "She'll be fine."

"Well then, the only reason you'd call me is if something went wrong, and if she's alive...what went wrong?"

"I was a bit too heavy handed with Wolfram, I need your cleanup crew."

"How heavy handed?"

"Bring a mop," Horizon sighs. "I got a bit...I honestly don't even know."

"Were you conscious when you fought him?"

"Mostly, I can't explain this over the phone," Horizon says. "Can you send your team."

"Yes, and I'll keep the press and police away from the scene until they're done, the last thing we need is the news getting wind of this."

"Thanks."

"I'm not doing this for you," Pantu says. "Japan simply can't afford to be put in a position where we could lose you, drop the girl off at UA and come see me, and don't tell anyone but Nezu exactly what happened."

"Got it," Horizon hangs up and takes a deep breath, looking around at the destruction.

---1 Hour Later...

Standing atop a skyscraper in Fukuoka, Horizon is leaning on the railing while watching the port island be swarmed by police boats and helicopters.

The news drone and helicopters were barely seconds behind the emergency services and first responders, and he breathes a sigh of relief as the most stressful part of this is now over, at least for tonight.

After he called Pantu she sent in people she trusted, so they had to wait on the port island for almost an hour.

But her people made short work of cleaning up the crime scene.

Officially nobody was allowed to venture there, so he had to warp her people onto the island for them to do their jobs, then send them back to the city.

Now the regular emergency services and media were allowed to venture to the island to investigate and spin the story in a positive light.

Minutes later he takes out his phone, held by his cleaned gloves. His jacket and pants were shredded beyond any usable state so he cast those aside, given to Pantu's team for destruction. Now he was simply wearing the body glove.

Luckily they were high above the roof so nobody would see, especially since nobody was focused on the city itself.

He sees the first news feed to go live is from Chitose's media outlet, as usual.

"We're here live on the port island, just miles away from Fukuoka!" the woman says, gesturing to the city behind her.

She then begins walking as the camera follows her, showing the completely destroyed man-made island being scoured by other news crews and emergency services.

"The destruction of this island will set Japan back countless billions of dollars in trade, not to mention the repair and reconstruction cost of any infrastructure that was here just over an hour ago.

The Hero Public Safety Commission has released an official statement of what happened here, assuring the public that the matter has been completely deal with."

The woman begins walking over to the crater, not able to get too close but just enough for the camera to zoom in on it, nearly 10m wide and half as deep.

From the drones above the public could see inside, and there was not a drop of blood or any semblance of DNA within the crater to be found.

"As it turns out, a international mercenary and Villain, codenamed 'Wolfram', used his Metal Manipulation Quirk to battle Horizon here.

This villain entered Japan weeks ago and Horizon had been diligently tracking him on his own, this led to a confrontation at this port where Wolfram was making arrangements to import extremely destructive and potentially nuclear weapons.

This same Wolfram was also responsible for the now confirmed sabotage at the Keito Nuclear Reactor. This confirms our suspicions that the gas leak scare within that city was simply a cover up, but the Hero Public Safety Commission assures us that the situation there was resolved via the combined efforts of everyone's favorite disaster rescue Hero, 13.

As well as Horizon who greatly assisted in containing the radiation. We believe that Wolfram used that as a trial run to see exactly how capable our Pro Heroes are at dealing with nuclear threats, and when his attempt was thwarted, he resorted to trying to buy large scale nuclear weapons.

Thankfully Horizon was able to intercept his order, and not only was it stopped on our end, but the sellers of such heinous devices oversees were simultaneously apprehended."

The woman continues talking while Horizon nods along, genuinely impressed, 'Pantu came up with all of that so quickly, no wonder she's the head of the Commission...'

He sees the woman pause for a moment and hold her earpiece, then she smiles brightly. "We now have confirmation that not only was no one hurt, thanks to Horizon warping all the civilians and workers away from the port and into the city. But Horizon himself is entirely unharmed, as we've come to expect from our strongest guardian.

In addition to that wonderful news, Wolfram has been secured in a facility and is awaiting private trial to pay for his crimes!"

Horizon nods along, thoroughly impressed, already seeing some notifications from his social media accounts flooding in.

He hops over to his 'Yay!' app, and the first thing he sees makes him chuckle.

'Ryukyu's boyfriend is so strong!' as the caption, followed by a picture of the destroyed island.

He immediately takes a screenshot and sends it to her, knowing when she wakes up to it that'll annoy her.

He then quickly scrolls past thousands of posts singing his praises before hopping back over to the news.

Most of the world would believe this, they'd think he solved this serious matter, saved millions of lives and arrested Wolfram without suffering so much of a scratch.

But then he got one message from someone who could see through it all, a simple, 'Are you alright?' from Ryuko.

'I'm perfect, handling paperwork,' was his only response.

Just in time to hear groaning beside him.

Because this entire time Melissa Shield was laying on the floor, completely knocked out.

"How are you feeling?" was all he asked, not even looking at her as she gets up, all the cuts and bruises healed, yet she stumbles slightly before holding onto the railing.

"Where are we?" she asks. "What happened?"

"Wolfram kidnapped you, I saved you, now we're in Fukuoka, how are you feeling?"

"Sleepy," Melissa says as she now focuses her mind, and sees the island in the distance being swarmed by boats and helicopters. "Is that where we were?"

"Mhm," Horizon casually reaches out and rests a hand on her forearm, using Scan to check on her, but mostly to know if she's lying. "I'm just running another checkup, I already healed you earlier."

"Oh, ok..."

"How much do you remember, what do you remember from the fight?"

"I remember you blinking about everywhere, then I got knocked out, then I woke up here," she says, and luckily for her, he doesn't detect any lies.

Then the concussion wasn't that bad, "he lets go of her and continues scrolling."

"Is my dad alright?"

"He should still be asleep," Horizon says.

Melissa breathes a sighs of relief, then just leans on the railing and begins quietly crying.

Horizon stops his scrolling, glances over at her, then just goes back to scrolling.

"Sorry for all of this, for causing you so much trouble," Melissa says.

"Yeah well, its the job," Horizon shrugs. "You really don't have to feel bad about it. You just got caught in the crossfire of your dad and Tech."

Melissa sighs at the thought of that, "yeah, I guess you're right."

"I usually am."

Melissa chuckles at that, and actually manages to crack a smile, "you know, you aren't as bad as I initially thought you were...and certainly not as mean as your classmates make you out to be."

"I've literally never been mean to them, ever," Horizon says.

"Well I wouldn't say that, but at least you've mostly been nice to me. And now that everything is over and the danger is gone, its kind of nice having a strong hero protecting me."

"Sorry but the last thing I need is to have a third girl at UA trying to get my attention."

Melissa scoffs at that idea, "oh god no! You're a great Pro Hero, but as a person...you're kind of, the worst."

"Ouch."

"Wait, that sounded super mean! I mean I'm thankful for all you've done especially with saving me, but just, you're not my type you know!"

"I got what you mean, and believe me its a relief on my end too, even if you're one of the few girls at UA I actually respect, it wouldn't work out."

Melissa looks confused at that, "you actually respect me? Why? Aren't you like a all powerful god who always speaks down to everyone?"

"I'm not all powerful, and I don't speak down to anyone," Horizon says. "I speak to them in a manner appropriate for their worth, they just happen to mostly be trash."

"Jerk," Melissa mutters.

"But as for respecting you, well, you're Quirkless, which means anything you can do, someone with a Quirk can do better. In fact, a certain bear-mouse thing with a High Spec Quick is more of a genius inventor than you and your dad combined, but, you still try."

"Because I try, you respect me?"

"Because you succeed," Horizon says. "Most Quickless people are worse than trash, because not only can they never match up to people with Quirks in a competitive sense, they're also genetically weaker.

I mean you guys don't even have the ability to regrow teeth, or the inherent superhuman adaptability, its like you're humans from hundreds of years ago. But most Quirkless people make themselves even worse by dwelling on these aspects their entire lives and allowing it to destroy them, they don't even bothering to try.

And if they do try, they don't do enough work to be competitive, much less succeed. But you did it, and so did your dad. And as for him, well, if he didn't cause such a big headache for me I'd like him a lot more..."

Melissa looks at him in a new light, taking his words to heart and almost crying again, being recognized by the man most of the world looks up to as the pinnacle of superhuman potential.

"You know, if this was the side of you I met first, maybe I would have fallen for you," she says. "Good thing I saw the jerk side of you first, saved me a lot of heartache."

"Tch, you wish you could get a guy like me," Horizon says. "Besides you're leaving UA at the end of this semester and moving across the world, so its for the best really."

"Yeah, but if you ever come to America, we should catch up."

"Ha! Pantu doesn't even like me leaving Tokyo and Musutafu, like hell she'd ever let me leave Japan, now lets get out of here, or ride just called me..."

END CHAPTER---