Chapter 239 - 238: Realization

Makoto stared at the computer screen. The glowing letters reflected off her glasses.

[Zero Results Found]

She cleared the search bar and typed it again.

[Zero Results Found]

She turned her chair around and looked up at Kaito.

"Kaito," Makoto said quietly. "Where are you?"

Kaito crossed his arms and looked at the screen. He didn't look worried.

"Step back for a second," Kaito told her.

Makoto pushed her chair back.

Kaito tapped the side of his sleek watch.

BEEP.

A small, blue holographic interface projected into the air above his wrist.

"Eve," Kaito spoke into the watch.

The mini version of Eve 0.2 booted up instantly.

[Yes, sir.] Eve's voice chimed quietly from the watch speaker.

"Bypass the public network," Kaito instructed. "I want you to access the secure hero registry and the national police database for this timeline. Find out what happened to Makoto Tsukauchi."

[Processing.]

Makoto leaned forward. She watched the lines of code scroll rapidly across Kaito's holographic display.

"You brought Eve with us?" Makoto asked.

"Just a localized copy," Kaito smiled. "I don't leave home without her."

[Search complete,] Eve reported. [Displaying files now.]

The dark monitor of the internet cafe flashed. A dozen official documents and news clips popped up on the screen.

Makoto grabbed the mouse.

"Let's see..."

She searched for her brother first.

Naomasa Tsukauchi.

The police registry loaded.

A photo of Naomasa appeared on the screen. He looked a bit tired, wearing his usual tan trench coat.

"Okay," Makoto sighed in relief. "Naomasa is still a police detective here. That's good."

She clicked out of his file and opened the Hero Billboard Chart.

Her eyes went wide.

"Endeavor?" Makoto whispered, pointing at the Number One spot. "Where is All Might? And also where is O'Clock?"

Kaito looked at the ranking. He didn't say anything.

Makoto clicked on the file with her own name.

A high-resolution photo opened.

She wore a casual jacket and sunglasses. She stood next to a tall, muscular American hero with a massive smile, Captain Celebrity.

Another young man in a blue hoodie stood on the other side of them.

"Wait..." Makoto whispered. "That's me. But I'm in America."

"It seems that you manage Captain Celebrity here," Kaito pointed at the screen.

Makoto clicked on a video file attached to her profile.

The footage showed the massive Sky Egg stadium in Naruhata hanging in the air.

A young man slid across the sky, leaving a trail of glowing blue energy behind him, desperately trying to catch a falling structure.

"That's Koichi," Makoto said, leaning closer to the screen. "Skycrawler. He is fighting... Hmm?"

She squinted at the screen. She didn't recognize the large, scarred man swinging brass knuckles at first.

"Knuckleduster," Makoto read the name out loud.

And everything clicked.

"Isn't this just Iwao?" Makoto said, typing rapidly. "The O'Clock agency should have a record of this."

[Zero Results Found.]

Makoto stopped typing.

"What?" Makoto muttered. "The O'Clock agency doesn't exist? What happened to the Old Man?"

She forced Eve to run a deep background check on the Vigilante Knuckleduster and Pro Hero O'Clock.

A restricted police file popped up.

A mugshot of the same scarred, brutal man from the video and information appeared on the screen.

Makoto looked at the information.

"Knuckleduster operating in Naruhata Ward. He's a quirkless vigilante."

She scrolled down to read the attached incident reports.

"Pro Hero O'Clock."

Her breath hitched.

"No..." Makoto whispered.

She read the cold text of the police report.

Years ago, Iwao's wife critically died in the hospital after being attacked by the villain.

Eve processing power gathered all the available informations in this world. Then the results came in.

His daughter, Tamao, was taken by villains and possessed, turned into a villain known as Queen Bee before attacking her own mother.

She was eventually saved during a massive, brutal conflict and was freed from the parasitic quirk.

But her mother, the wife of Iwao also died the exact same day.

Tears welled up in Makoto's eyes.

In her world, Iwao's family was incredibly close to her. They were like a second family.

They trusted Kaito with their lives. Reading about their tragic fate in this reality felt like a physical punch to the chest.

"His wife died," Makoto said, her voice shaking. "Tamao was turned into Queen Bee. He lost his quirk."

She looked up at Kaito, her eyes completely red.

"In our world, his wife is alive," Makoto said softly. "Tamao is fine. Iwao is the Number Four pro hero. Kaito... did you do something?"

Kaito leaned against the desk next to her chair. He looked at the police report on the screen.

"Remember when Iwao took me, Koichi, and Pop to visit the hospital?" Kaito asked quietly.

Makoto nodded, sniffing.

"I healed his wife secretly while we were in the room," Kaito explained. "And during their final fight with Tamao as Queen Bee, I helped him get her back before things got worse. After that, I regenerated his stolen quirk factor so he could be O'Clock again."

"..."

Makoto stared at him. The reality of his words sank in.

Without Kaito, the people she loved suffered terribly.

This timeline was bleeding because he wasn't here to fix it.

She didn't say anything else.

She turned in her chair and wrapped her arms tightly around Kaito's waist. She buried her face in his shirt.

She hugged him hard.

"Thank you," Makoto cried softly against his chest. "Thank you for being there. Thank you for talking to me that day."

Kaito placed his hand gently on the back of her head. He let her cry for a minute.

"It's okay," Kaito said softly.

Makoto took a deep breath. She pulled back slightly and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

She turned back to the keyboard.

"One more search," Makoto sniffled.

She typed in Kaito's family registry.

"Saki Arisaka."

The screen shifted. A photo of an older woman standing in front of a small grocery store appeared.

[Saki Arisaka resides in the Musutafu Prefecture,] Eve reported. [She is married. She has no children. She has no grandchildren.]

Makoto looked at the screen.

"You really aren't here," Makoto said softly.

"Looks like it," Kaito replied, slipping his hands into his pockets. "Come on. Let's get out of here. Searching a public cafe for government files is a good way to ruin a vacation."

...

SLID.

Kaito pushed the heavy door open.

​They walked out of an electronics store down the street.

Kaito carried a sleek, black laptop box under his right arm.

​"Are you sure our money works here?" Makoto asked. She looked at the plastic shopping bag in her hand.

​Kaito pulled his wallet out of his pocket. He handed her a crisp ten-thousand Yen bill.

​"Same serial formats," Kaito said. "Same economy. The only difference is the historical events."

​They walked three blocks down the street and entered a luxury hotel. Kaito paid for the room in cash.

​They took the elevator up to the fifteenth floor.

​Kaito unlocked the door and pushed it open.

​The room was spacious. A king-sized bed sat in the middle of the floor. Large windows offered a clear view of the city skyline.

​Makoto walked straight past the luggage rack. She sat down on the edge of the bed and tore the laptop box open.

​She pulled the computer out and plugged the charger into the wall.

​"I need to know everything," Makoto said, booting the computer up. "If you don't exist here, then Arisaka Consulting doesn't exist. Hero X doesn't exist. All the agencies you changed are still using an old standard, not the Golden Manager Standard."

​Kaito chuckled.

He walked over to the small couch near the window and sat down.

​"Take your time," Kaito told her. "I'm going to check something out on my end."

​Makoto didn't even look up. Her fingers flew across the keyboard.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

​Kaito leaned his head back against the couch. He closed his eyes.

Huff. Puff.

Huff. Puff.

​He slowed his breathing down. He tuned out the sound of Makoto typing.

​His consciousness shifted.

​He stepped out of his physical body and entered the fourth dimension.

​The timeline branches stretched out in front of him like a massive, glowing tree.

Kaito focused his mind, tracing the specific energy signatures.

"So this guy got out from the 2d dimension where I crumpled him and is causing trouble again?"

​He saw All For One was the cause.

​The villain boss was jumping from different timelines.

He was actively creating temporal disruptions.

​Kaito watched the process happen. He even witnessed All For One killing his own self and absorbing it.

"Why is his motive somewhat familiar?"

"Hmm..."

An antagonist traveled through parallel universes, killing his alternate selves to consolidate all their power into a single body.

All For One was doing the exact same thing to his own variants.

"It's that old movie, The One." Kaito rubbed his chin while looking at the scene on the fourth dimension.

"Where did the branch timeline all started... Let's see..." Kaito then saw the very first time All For One caused a timeline to split.

"This guy tried to kill me in the past? Preventing me to exist?"

​But as Kaito watched All For One manipulate the branches, he then know what was those strange sensation in his physical body happening all the time.

​"My power is still increasing."

​Every time All For One created a branch timeline or absorbed a variant of himself, Kaito's baseline existence also spiked.

He didn't have to lift a finger. The power just flowed into him.

​'This makes absolutely zero sense,' Kaito thought.

​He thought about the logic of his powers.

For years, he firmly believed his strength came from public perception. The more people believed in Hero X, the stronger he got.

He called it Public Belief or Trust Value.

​This completely shattered that theory.

He was getting massive power boosts from all the alternate timelines.

And vice verse those other variants of him also get stronger suddenly.

It's like all of the past, present and future of the existence named Kaito Arisaka who became Hero X is an inevitable anchor point in this universe.

​Kaito tried to make sense of it using the pop culture from his past life. "MCU? Loki and the TVA? Deadpool jumping through the fourth wall to manipulate the script?"

​'Is this an SCP anomaly thing?' Kaito joked to himself. 'Am I getting stronger because the narrative demands it? Or am I wrong about my quirk and it gets stronger as long I believe in myself?'

​He couldn't figure it out.

His quirk was completely incomprehensible. He couldn't create life from nothing, but he could manipulate reality on a different scale.

Well he decided to stop overthinking it.

"As long as I can live a happy life and my close friends and family are out of danger, I'm already content," Kaito smiled. "As for what All For One is doing... well, it only makes me stronger, and he can't even defeat my variants anyway."

​He looked further down the timeline tree.

"Wait... What's this?"

​Kaito saw a branch that looked completely different from the rest.

​It was pitch black.

​It wasn't just empty.

The branch was literally glitching.

Black static ate away at the edges of the timeline, deleting the reality from existence.

​Kaito tried to focus his vision on that specific branch to see what happened inside.

​Nothing.

​His vision hit a solid wall of nothingness. He couldn't see inside the dead timeline.

​Kaito pulled his focus back. He felt genuinely puzzled.

​'A collapse?' Kaito thought.

​He remembered the movie Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Or the Deadpool 3 movie where the anchor being, Wolverine died.

But this doesn't look like a timeline degradation since it would take million of years before a timeline slowly getting erased.

So this was like a canon event disruption.

Someone did something in that specific timeline that broke a fundamental, anchoring rule of the universe.

The timeline couldn't reconcile the massive paradox, so it just deleted itself completely to protect the rest of the multiverse.

​"Did All For One did something to me or someone else?"

Kaito didn't know All For One triggered the collapse by erasing his birth. He even killed his Grandma Saki and his Grandpa who he hadn't met.

​As for what he will do after finding out? It will be on the future.

--<>--

​"Kaito."

​The sound of Makoto's voice pulled him out of the meditation.

​He opened his eyes.

​Makoto sat on the bed. She turned the laptop around so he could see the screen. Her face was pale.

​"This world is a mess," Makoto said quietly.

​Kaito sat up. He walked over and sat next to her on the bed.

​"What did you find?" Kaito asked.

​Makoto pointed at the screen.

​"Everything," Makoto answered. "The League of Villains attacked U.A. High directly at the USJ. The students had to fight for their lives."

​She clicked to the next tab.

​"Then the Hero Killer Stain happened," Makoto continued. "He posted a video calling all pro heroes fake. It went viral. Half the underground criminals in Japan joined the League of Villains overnight."

​She clicked again.

​"The League attacked a secret training camp and kidnapped Katsuki Bakugo. The media tore U.A. apart. The public completely lost faith in the hero system."

​She clicked on a video file.

​"And then... this happened in Kamino Ward."

​The video played.

​It was shaky helicopter footage. Entire city blocks were leveled to the ground in Kamino.

​All Might stood in the center of a massive crater. He was fighting All For One.

​But All Might didn't look like the Symbol of Peace. He looked like a frail, skeletal old man. Blood dripped from his mouth.

​He threw a massive punch that ended All For One, but the effort clearly destroyed his own body.

​Makoto watched the screen.

​"I never knew about this," Makoto whispered. "He really fought until his body broke. He retired right after this fight. The symbol of peace is gone here."

​She closed the video.

​"Now that I think about it... You contracted All Might in the past, right?" Makoto remembered something. "So you knew a long time ago about the true nature of his secret?"

​"Yes," Kaito admitted, leaning back slightly. "But it's work, and I'm a principled man. I don't just talk about my clients' secrets with anyone."

​"I understand that," Makoto said, looking back at the laptop. She continued her research. "The Yakuza made quirk-destroying bullets. Sir Nighteye died in the raid. Deika City was completely destroyed and the government covered it up."

Thud.

​She closed the laptop screen halfway. She looked up at him.

​"This world is bleeding," Makoto said. "Because you aren't here. The Golden Manager or Hero X doesn't exist to stop any of this."

​Kaito looked at the laptop. He raised his hand.

​He drew two glowing yellow lines in the air with his finger.

They ran perfectly parallel to each other, completely separate and distinct.

​"Think of this as two completely different realities,"

Kaito explained, tapping the first line. "This is our universe. And this one," he tapped the second line, "is this universe's timeline."

​Makoto watched the glowing lines carefully.

​"They aren't connected. They don't branch off each other," Kaito continued. "They just exist side by side. But because I existed in our reality, the entire structure of the world changed."

​He pointed at the first glowing line.

​"Because Hero X stepped in, All Might didn't get injured years ago. His power got a massive upgrade with the help of Golden Manager," Kaito stated simply. "All For One got crushed early on by Hero X. The League of Villains got destroyed last global raid by all the pro heroes that the Golden Manager contract with..."

​He looked at her.

​"But more importantly," Kaito smiled slightly. "Because I existed in that reality... we got to know each other."

​Makoto blinked. The worry faded from her face.

She smiled back at him.

​"You're right," Makoto said softly. "If you didn't exist, I will be in America managing Captain Celebrity just like here."

​She looked out the hotel window. The city lights flickered in the dark.

It was a beautiful city, but knowing the tragedy hiding underneath the surface made it feel fragile.

​

She turned back to him.

A playful smirk formed on her lips.

​"So," Makoto said, leaning closer to him. "Are you going to let this world continue? Or do you want Hero X to make a grand debut and save it?"

"..."

"..."

​"You want me to step in?"

​"I'm just saying," Makoto teased, tapping his chest. "If you fix this world, the American Makoto might be very grateful. You could have two of me. Double the happiness."

​Kaito raised an eyebrow.

​"Is that an offer?" Kaito joked back.

​Makoto laughed and pushed his shoulder playfully.

​They sat together on the bed, looking out at the city lights, trying to decide what to do next.

...

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