MHA: LAW OF MOTION

CHAPTER SEVEN

"Holy shit, that was wild. I hope the heroes can rescue those poor children on time," Takeru muttered incoherently, his mind still reeling from what he had just witnessed.

"Rio, did you see that? That was—" Takeru's words were cut off as he witnessed his brother, shell-shocked, grinding his teeth in utter fury. His anger radiated like a thunderstorm.

Anger and grief surged through Rio's heart. He felt immense guilt toward Hana. His self-loathing was so great he could barely breathe.

If only he had stayed behind today. He made a promise, one he couldn't even keep, and now this happened. If he was there, none of this would have happened. He could have protected them. He could have saved Hana.

He gripped his palms so tightly that his nails dug into his skin. Blood trickled down his arms in a slow pitter-patter.

Takeru just watched all this, puzzled and unsure of what to say. He wondered why his brother was so distressed, his mind quickly sorting through all the possibilities and immediately narrowing to one.

"Oh no, Rio, I'm so sorry. Did you know them?"

Rio was having none of that. Without even deigning it necessary to listen to his brother's platitudes, he stormed into the kitchen. Going through the assortment of knives, he picked up the biggest and sharpest one he could find.

Takeru followed him into the kitchen as he watched his brother browsing through the knives.

"Calm the fuck down. Whatever is going through your head now is probably very stupid. I can already see where this is going, but I'll give you a chance. Explain yourself."

"Move. Now."

"What do you possibly hope to achieve? Every active pro hero in the city is most likely on this case. Do you even know where they're being held? Who the perpetrator is? HOW THE HELL DO YOU EXPECT TO FIND THEM?"

"I will find them. Even if I have to comb through every warehouse in the city—I WILL FIND THEM!"

"Even if you do find them, what could you possibly do? You're a six-year-old child with a kitchen knife. These people are an organized group. You'll die without even knowing how it happened!"

"I'll figure something out."

"ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO YOURSELF?" Takeru screamed out in frustration as he punched the wall heavily, his knuckles bruising immediately on impact.

"Please, Takeru. If I don't go, I'll never be able to forgive myself. When Dad died, I would rationalize the whole thing. I kept telling myself there was nothing I could do, that it wasn't my fault. I had no power then to protect him or myself. But this, Takeru—this is different. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if anything happened to them, knowing I could have saved them."

Takeru stared at me heavily, huffing in anger. I met his gaze with silent determination.

We held that pose for what felt like days until Takeru turned his face away in defeat, growling in anger.

"Follow me." Without waiting for a reply from me, he immediately bounded up the stairs, heading straight for our room.

"Why are we going upstairs? We need to be combing the streets right now."

"You know, Rio, for someone who's usually very smart, you're acting like a dumb kid right now. So I'll ask, will you shut up and just follow me, or will you keep whining?"

To that, I gave no answer, silently following along as I sighed in resignation.

Takeru took to booting up the computer, and immediately, I understood what was going on.

"If you built a device, you'd best use it when the occasion calls for it. If not, it'll be nothing but a decoration."

The application for the monitoring device immediately loaded up.

"This still can't search for what we need automatically, but we can look this up manually. Check the database—I cataloged the businesses that need warehouses for storage spaces. We can start from there."

I noted down the details in a flash, dark blue lightning bursting from my eyes. The world came to a standstill as I observed with scrutiny the surveillance video, comparing it with the warehouse in the broadcast.

Rio had gone far in his quirk development. While the amount of energy he could draw hadn't increased much and his quirk hadn't grown stronger, he had grown increasingly refined in its usage.

Where others may have only been able to produce an output of 1:1 with the same amount of effort, he could produce 20 times the results.

Rio had learned to completely isolate the physical speed increment effects of his quirk, forgoing it entirely for extreme mental acuity. In this state, he dubbed 'The World'—an instant, a mere second stretching up to six minutes.

He continuously entered and exited 'The World' state cautiously, trying his best to minimize consumption. In less than a minute, he had sifted through forty-seven warehouses, immediately locking down the most suspicious.

"Found them!" Rio's voice was noticeably hoarse, the exertion from using his quirk taking a toll on him.

Takeru looked at him in worry, but Rio just shook his head to indicate that this was not the time.

"I'll be fine. It's a machinery spare parts store on the outskirts of the city, southeast of here."

"There's no way I'm leaving my six-year-old brother alone to go take on a den of villains. I'm going with you," Takeru said, determination etched on his features.

To that, I just smiled and shook my head at his declaration. "I'm the fastest being alive. You can't keep up. This will be over soon."

And with a flash of dark blue lightning, Rio was gone.

Takeru just gazed at the door and sighed. He was still worried, but he had bigger problems to focus on. Number one being what excuse he'd have to make for his brother not being present.

Rio sped through the streets at blinding speeds. All pedestrians could see was a burst of dark-blue light, and then immediately after, a gust of wind tearing through the atmosphere.

Rio compared the streets he moved past, ensuring he did not deviate from the route to his location. Ever since he had gotten his quirk, his memory had become unimaginable. Every detail from then to now had become a precise image seared into his mind.

His body grew increasingly thin as he soldiered on. His quirk was very straightforward—so straightforward that he could not find a feasible loophole to make himself much stronger. Speed force conversion was what he called it—sacrificing stamina and body fat to generate speed force energy.

The demand on his body was too taxing for his six-year-old frame to keep up with, especially when quirks were a power system heavily dependent on the user's physical fitness.

Tears ran down his eyes as he did his best to stop dust particles and insects from making contact with them during his high-speed movement.

The moment he locked eyes on a red warehouse, which cut an imposing figure as the only building in sight for nearly a kilometer, all distracting thoughts faded away.

He immediately canceled his movement as he gazed at the lookouts stationed all over the premises.

Six individuals in constant motion, vigilantly securing the premises. All clad in white robes and conic white hats. They moved like a trained militia, waving hand signals at every turn as they monitored their surroundings with the vigilance of a hawk stalking its prey.

Rio looked at this all with a grim countenance.

While he had expected the place to be crawling with members of the Creature Rejection Clan, he had not accounted for the fact that they would be so obvious in their intentions—brazenly placing six individuals in their conspicuous uniforms at the front of their base.

'I can take them all. In three seconds tops, all of them will be down on the floor.'

Even though he knew for a fact that taking down six grown men—a frankly incredible feat—should be possible, he doubted he would have much energy left to account for unforeseen circumstances.

He was in enemy territory, going in blind. No allies, no reinforcements, no knowledge of the terrain or enemy numbers. Even though this was a terrible situation that was increasingly bleak, Rio caught himself unconsciously breaking into an ear-splitting grin.

His blood pumped deafeningly in his ears, his palms sweaty as his adrenal glands worked overtime. Unprecedented levels of excitement washed over him.

The situation was dire, but Rio did not doubt himself for even a second. He believed he would win.

"Hey, KKK wannabes! I have something really interesting to show you."

The six white-clad individuals turned their heads simultaneously, where they saw an oddly dressed child in nothing but an All Might tracksuit and sneakers, looking at them with what could only be described as a demonic grin.

"Have you ever been kicked by light?"