Chapter Text
MUSUTAFU woke up brightly.
Morning sunlight spilled between skyscrapers, reflecting off glass buildings and giant digital hero advertisements plastered across the city. Train stations overflowed with movement. Conversations overlapped endlessly. Somewhere several streets away, a hero agency mascot was already shouting motivational slogans through a microphone with concerning levels of enthusiasm.
The city sounded alive.
Sora listened to all of it through police frequencies and traffic reports while eating convenience store melon bread in complete silence.
His apartment was dark despite the sunlight outside.
Not intentionally.
The curtains were open.
The room simply preferred dimness around him.
Six monitors glowed across the cramped desk pushed against the wall, each displaying something different, city infrastructure maps, emergency response routes, police scanner transcripts, underground forum activity, public surveillance feeds, hero dispatch timing.
One smaller monitor in the corner displayed a blinking warning window.
INCIDENT PROBABILITY INCREASE DETECTED
Sora sighed softly.
"...Again?"
His laptop chimed immediately afterward.
LOCATION: Naruhata East District
THREAT TYPE: Armed robbery escalating toward hostage situation
ESTIMATED HERO RESPONSE: 8 minutes
Sora glanced toward the timestamp.
Too long.
Outside, a siren wailed faintly in the distance.
His fingers moved lazily across the keyboard.
Traffic lights updated instantly across three nearby intersections.
Civilian navigation apps rerouted pedestrians away from the district under the excuse of construction delays.
Emergency shutters inside nearby stores activated early due to a fabricated weather warning.
Simple adjustments.
Small nudges.
The world responded quietly.
On another monitor, a police communication line crackled to life.
"Units responding to Naruhata incident. Civilians still inside building."
Sora paused.
Then opened a private encrypted channel.
Recipient:
ERASURE HERO: ERASERHEAD
The message window blinked once.
Sora typed calmly.
Two armed suspects.
West stairwell wired with support explosives.
Don't enter from the front.
Three dots appeared almost immediately.
Then:
Parallax?
Sora stared at the message for two seconds.
Reasonable question.
He typed again.
Left rooftop access is unlocked now.
A pause.
Then:
Tsukauchi traced this channel yet?
Sora blinked once slowly.
Interesting response.
Not:
who are you
Not:
how did you get this frequency
Instead:
can we track you
Sora respected the professionalism.
No.
Another pause.
Then:
...Figures.
Sora took another bite of melon bread.
Naruhata District was loud with police sirens by the time arrived.
Civilians crowded behind barricades while officers struggled to control the growing panic outside the convenience store currently being held hostage.
Aizawa stepped beneath police tape without slowing.
"Status."
looked exhausted already.
"Two perpetrators. Maybe three. Hostages still inside." He lowered his voice slightly. "And our anonymous friend is back."
Aizawa's phone vibrated inside his pocket.
Another message.
Thermal cameras won't help.
One suspect lowers body temperature intentionally.
Aizawa stared at the screen.
"...That's annoying."
Tsukauchi pinched the bridge of his nose.
"You say that like this is normal."
"For him? It is."
"You're becoming disturbingly accepting about the existence of an illegal information broker."
"He's accurate."
"That does not make this less concerning."
Aizawa looked toward the building quietly.
Then:
West stairwell wired with support explosives.
"...Evacuate the western side," he said suddenly.
Tsukauchi frowned. "Why?"
"Because if he's right and we ignore it, paperwork gets worse."
"...That's your reasoning?"
"It's effective reasoning."
Before Tsukauchi could answer, an officer suddenly shouted from the west entrance.
"BOMB DETECTION CONFIRMED!"
Silence hit briefly.
Then chaos exploded immediately afterward.
Tsukauchi looked down at Aizawa's phone slowly.
"...I hate this."
Aizawa shoved his hands into his pockets.
"Mm."
"You're not bothered?"
"I'm tired."
"That isn't an answer."
"It's the only one you're getting."
Several districts away, Sora watched the operation unfold through fragmented surveillance feeds while sunlight spilled lazily across his apartment floor.
The fluorescent light above his desk flickered faintly.
His reflection lagged behind him for half a second in the dark monitor beside the window.
Then corrected itself.
Sora ignored it.
On-screen, Eraserhead moved through the building exactly as instructed.
Fast. Efficient. Calm.
Probability rates shifted steadily downward.
CIVILIAN CASUALTY RISK: 41% → 12%
Better.
Sora leaned back slightly in his chair.
For a moment, he considered closing the monitors and sleeping.
Then another alert appeared.
ONLINE DISCUSSION TRENDING:
PARALLAX
"...Unfortunate."
A new thread loaded instantly.
[FORUM THREAD] WHO THE HELL IS PARALLAX?
This is the third incident this month where civilians evacuated before heroes arrived.
Replies flooded rapidly beneath it.
-definitely underground hero
-conspiracy theorist nonsense
-maybe support department leak??
-my cousin said traffic lights changed by themselves
-bro thinks he's all might
Sora closed the tab immediately after that one.
Emotionally exhausting.
His encrypted channel blinked once more.
A new message from Eraserhead.
Hostages secured.
Casualties minimal.
...Thanks.
Sora stared at the screen quietly.
Then typed:
Your capture weapon maintenance is overdue.
A full minute passed before the response arrived.
I liked you more before you started criticizing my equipment.
For the first time that morning, Sora smiled sligtly.
At the exact same moment, every flickering monitor in the apartment stabilized perfectly.
Outside, Musutafu continued moving beneath warm sunlight and towering hero billboards.
Bright. Loud. Hopeful.
And hidden somewhere deep inside its countless blind spots...
PARALLAX watched quietly from the shadows between systems.