Hero Maker
Ariel Everray.
A freshman at the International Hero Academy who had set her sights on walking the path of a hero only a few months ago.
"I'm looking right at you and talking to you. Why are you pretending you don't hear me?"
"...Excuse me?"
On her very first commute to school, she had run headlong into the greatest crisis of her life.
"Don't you remember me, Ariel?"
Trauma. The supervillain who had burst into the world like a comet barely a week ago. An incomprehensible entity whose identity and motives remained shrouded in mystery, impossible to predict or control.
"We met before, didn't we?"
That terrifying monster had cast a transparent barrier around them, shutting out the rest of the world as he spoke to her.
"A-Are you talking about... what happened at the academy?"
Soaked in cold sweat and paralyzed with tension, Ariel forced her lips open under Trauma's silent, suffocating pressure.
"T-Thank you for back then."
"..."
"F-For... saving me and Mr. Great..."
Her voice trailed off before she could even finish the sentence.
"Is that so?"
Trauma slowly tilted his head, muttering in a tone that sent a chill down her spine.
H-His atmosphere changed.
A week ago, he had seemed strangely hollow, like a lifeless marionette. But that version of him was gone without a trace.
Why? Back then, I definitely saw it.
In that fleeting instant when he struck down the Magical Beast ambushing them, she had caught a glimpse.
...A glimpse of my sister.
That resemblance to Justia had vanished into thin air.
"So that's how you saw it."
As Trauma whispered those words, she sensed only a fathomless, pitch-black abyss emanating from him.
"W-What are you trying to say?"
Ariel instinctively took a step back from the sickening dread rolling off him.
"E-Eek...!"
Right at that moment, a shriek of raw horror erupted from behind Trauma.
"I don't intend to tell you with words. I'll show you through action."
Trauma raised a hand. Behind him, Ariel's eyes locked onto a civilian trembling violently, hands clutched tight around their own throat.
"W-Wait!"
She desperately reached out toward them.
"Let's talk this through...!"
Crack—!
It was already too late.
"Ah."
The civilian snapped their own neck with their bare hands, their body collapsing limply onto the pavement.
"That makes one."
Ariel stared in hollow disbelief before Trauma's voice pulled her gaze back to him.
"A person who died because you, the hero, failed to stop me, the villain."
Her legs began to shake uncontrollably.
"S-Save me!!"
"M-My body won't listen to me...!"
"Y-You filthy villain...!"
The hostages held captive behind her and Trauma descended into sheer pandemonium after witnessing the gruesome death.
L-Lumia...
Trembling from the unbearable sight, Ariel frantically searched for anyone who could help.
...No, it's hopeless. There's no way.
Lumia, who had somehow remained unaffected by the mental compulsion, was furiously clawing at the barrier with her fingernails, gnashing her teeth. By all appearances, she was completely powerless to intervene.
"Where do you think you're looking?"
Ariel had no idea what to do. She wasn't an official hero, merely an aspiring student. How could someone who hadn't even begun basic coursework shoulder an incident of this magnitude?
Snap! Crunch—!
Yet the moment three more hostages twisted their own necks in rapid succession, collapsing into lifeless heaps, Ariel broke.
"Stop iiiiiit!"
With a desperate scream, she threw herself at Trauma.
A few minutes later.
"Cough, cough..."
"Yes, that's what a hero is supposed to do."
Trauma gazed down at Ariel, who lay crumpled before him, wheezing for breath. His voice was devoid of emotion.
"Though I suppose weakness is something you can't help."
Just as he said, Ariel was completely battered. Her lips were split, her entire body was mottled with bruises, and her long hair had been singed down to a ragged bob. She was a total wreck.
"Just... why?"
The front row of hostages outside the barrier was already dead, their necks unnaturally twisted.
"Why are you doing this...?"
She had thrown herself forward again and again at the sight, yet she hadn't been able to save a single soul.
"Why aren't you killing me? What did I ever do to you?!"
It was a cry drenched in utter despair from a girl pushed to the very brink of collapse.
"You're the one who started it."
Trauma crouched beside her, whispering in a low, quiet murmur.
"You called me a hero."
"What does that have to do with..."
"It annoyed me."
His gaze drifted toward the press helicopter circling in the sky above.
"If you see me as a hero, we can't be arch-nemeses, can we?"
"Just... for a stupid reason like that?"
Ariel's trembling voice echoed within the confines of the barrier.
"Why am I your nemesis in the first place? Why do I have to fight you...?"
A single tear tracked down her cheek. Trauma gripped her shoulder, slowly hauling her back onto her feet.
"There's plenty of reason."
He leaned in close. Through the cracked opening of his mask, the painted eye met hers.
"Because... I'm the one who killed your sister."
A brief, suffocating silence fell between them.
"...What?"
"You hid the fact that you're Justia's sister quite well."
As Ariel asked the question in pale shock, Trauma gently patted her head.
"Yet you look so much like her. You can't fool everyone forever."
Ariel shoved his hand away with every ounce of strength she had left, stumbling backward.
"That makes no sense."
Crawling away across the pavement, she muttered with an expression of sheer disbelief.
"The one who killed my sister was..."
"Kang Haneul, you mean?"
Trauma cut her off mid-sentence, throwing his arms wide open.
"That's right!"
His voice thundered inside the barrier.
"I am Kang Haneul!"
Ariel stared up at him in dazed shock, her expression gradually contorting in horror.
"Just because I'm wearing a mask doesn't mean I have to hide who I am, does it?"
"Y-You..."
"On second thought, though, I really hate the idea of everyone gossiping about my true identity."
Trauma crouched in front of her again and pulled something from his pocket.
"So let's keep this a secret between just the two of us."
"Ah..."
Before she could even think to resist, he used the Hypnosis App to etch the mental suggestion deep into her mind.
"Really, you're quite naive."
"W-What did you just do to me? What is that smartphone...?"
Ariel blinked her vacant eyes at the screen, only snapping back to reality when Trauma's mocking voice reached her ears.
"I tested the power I took from your sister just for fun, and you actually called me a hero. You even keep rushing at me, genuinely believing you can beat me."
"..."
"That foolish streak of yours is the spitting image of your sister."
Looking down at her, the mocking warmth vanished entirely from Trauma's voice.
"Though I'm starting to get bored."
"...What?"
"I love that you share her face and her personality. But you didn't inherit a shred of her strength, did you?"
A fierce ember ignited in Ariel's eyes.
"Your sister told me something right before she died."
Trauma offered a faint smile at her reaction, continuing smoothly.
"She said her little sister would surpass her one day. That you would become a great hero who would strike me down."
"..."
"That was your childhood dream, wasn't it?"
A faint memory surfaced from the depths of Ariel's past.
Her sister, who had always been too busy to visit often, had sent letters every single day without fail. Half of those letters were filled with stories about her partner, and Ariel had always written back, promising she would become a great hero just like her.
Yet ever since discovering the limits of her own Concept—and the truth behind her sister's secret—she had been forced to abandon that dream.
"It seems I was lied to."
Trauma drove the dagger deeper.
"I've left myself wide open multiple times now, yet you can't even muster an attack. How could a weak little girl like you ever become a great hero?"
She had no words to refute him. Even now, Trauma stood with his defenses completely down.
If it were anyone else in her place—if it were Lumia, who was still banging violently on the barrier outside—they would have landed a counterattack by now.
"Forget it. Let's just wrap this up."
Just as despair flooded Ariel's mind, Trauma spoke again.
The instant the words left his mouth, all the remaining hostages clamped their hands around their own throats. A chorus of choked screams erupted in an instant. There was no time for any professional hero to arrive and resolve this.
I want to take him down.
In mere seconds, dozens of lives would be snuffed out. A moment of absolute, irreversible catastrophe.
I want to protect everyone's lives. Their smiles.
Ariel staggered to her feet.
Even if it costs me my life.
Unlike before, an unyielding fighting spirit burned in her eyes.
Just like my sister told me.
Ever since Justia's death, she had pursued the path of a hero as if possessed. On the outside, she had always forced a cheerful smile, but inside, she was lost, wandering aimlessly in the dark.
Now, for the first time in her life, she had a goal she was willing to die for: to save people.
Just one hit.
That was the exact moment.
Let me land just one clean blow on him.
And as if waiting for that very thought...
Bzzzzzzzzzt—!
A miracle occurred.
"Uwaaaaaah!"
Ariel. The little sister who looked so much like Justia. She unleashed a desperate battle cry and charged straight at me.
Crackle... Bzzzzzzzt!
A monstrous surge of energy coursed through her arms, her legs, and her entire frame.
◈ Name: Ariel Everray
◈ Sex / Age: Female (17)
◈ Concept: [Concept of the Hero]
◈ Special Notes: [Unawakened State]
Watching that raw energy alongside the information revealed by my Insight skill, a faint smile crossed my face.
I knew it. She really is the protagonist.
To possess the 'Concept of the Hero.' What could be more fitting for a true protagonist than that?
"No... Don't, Sunbae... Don't do that..."
Her character, her resolve—she was several times more of a true protagonist than that self-proclaimed one babbling away in the distance.
"Choose me... Choose me, please...!"
The fact that Ariel had been walking the streets alongside Lumia meant she was being kept under watch for some reason.
"That route is forbidden!!"
Lumia's shrieks echoed in all directions, but they were instantly drowned out by the thunderous boom of Ariel's incoming strike.
"That's it."
"Shut uuup!!"
From this moment on, I decided to add a new objective to my agenda: to forge this girl into the strongest hero in the world.
The protagonist who will bring an end to this dark era. I will gladly serve as the filthy fertilizer for her growth.
"Do you know how much my sister loved you?!!"
With that thought in mind, I closed my eyes as Ariel's fist hurtled straight toward my chest.
The Kaijin who had been lurking in the crowd to target her were already dealt with under the guise of the hostage crisis. As for the horrific recoil she would suffer from this strike, I had a way to shoulder it alongside her. And Lumia, watching us from behind as though her entire world had collapsed, wouldn't dare make a reckless move with the news helicopter hovering overhead.
"Why did you kill her?!!"
Now, in Justia's stead, it was my turn to take responsibility for her.