As for Yours Truly!
Anasole was the sort of villain you could find anywhere.
Set his life down on paper and it would barely fill a single page—a dull existence from the first line to the last. An unhappy home, domestic violence, parents tearing into each other, poverty, squalor: all of it had come installed as the standard options. Then, by chance, he awakened a superpower.
Superpowered Anasole burned the household he was sick to death of and, with his own hands, drowned the humans who were good for nothing but breeding. That was the day his life as a villain began.
Whether it was the venom in him or a knack that ran a little too strange, he opened his eyes one day to find himself running a small outfit in Hawaii.
"Boss. Something big came in today, yeah?"
"Something big?"
Fresh off another contract killing, same as any other day, Anasole tilted his head at his man's words.
"What is it."
"Just got off with the deputy. Says a huge job came in."
"Why the hell are you answering the deputy's calls."
"He was mid-job and didn't pick up, so he called me."
Anasole dug through his pocket and pulled out his phone. Three missed calls sat on the screen.
"How much are they paying?"
"That's……."
The underling leaned in and whispered it into Anasole's ear, close enough to turn the stomach. The foul breath made him want to snap the man's neck on impulse, but the figure that crawled out of that mouth blew his eyes wide.
"You serious……?"
"No, I'm telling you—the deputy called himself. It ain't a lie."
The man held up the phone and showed him the call log.
"Wait a minute. Clean this place up."
"You got it. Hey! Move it, move it!"
Leaving the body disposal to them, Anasole called the deputy.
"Well, aren't we quick to pick up."
That familiar, needling voice came through.
"Shut up. Is it real?"
"Is what."
"Fuck. I said, is it real!"
"Agh. You're gonna blow my eardrums out."
The deputy snickered.
"Yeah. They want a little terrorism."
"Where."
"The most expensive hotel in Waikiki."
"That place……?"
A hotel that expensive meant security that was anything but ordinary.
"The back end of this reeks like hell, doesn't it?"
"Right?"
He'd rolled around this world long enough to know. Jobs like that used villains to yank every eye the other way. He'd run a few himself, back when he was green.
"Who put in a request like that?"
"How the hell would I know?"
"I'm the idiot for asking."
Anasole hesitated. The job itself didn't matter. Terrorism wasn't something he'd only tried once or twice, and he was long past the age of flinching at heroes who would come howling after him.
"Getting used, though… that really doesn't sit right……."
"Fuck, you didn't hear the amount? With that kind of money you could buy a hotel in Hawaii, you moron."
"Nnngh."
He knew. It still felt rotten.
"And it didn't only come to us."
"A double contract?"
"No. Looks like they scattered it to every bastard on Oahu."
"……What?"
What was that supposed to mean?
A chill went through him.
"It's real. Guns and bombs have shot up like crazy. If we don't take this, we're the only ones eating the loss. We'd be the suckers."
"………."
"Boss, this is a jackpot. When else are you gonna get your hands on money like this? Take it and you could even wash yourself a new identity."
"Shut up for a second."
Who. Who would pull something like this?
Think. Think.
The terrorism itself was fine. But a terror attack that called up every villain on Oahu? What was there even to gain from a stunt like that?
"Boss! Boss!"
"What!"
This bastard, while he was trying to think.
"Sorry, but even if you hate it, we've gotta do it."
"Don't tell me you……."
"Down payment's in. You're welcome."
"You son of a bitch!!!"
One of these days I am going to grind that bastard up and drink him.
"Oh, and if this succeeds……."
But it was too much money to pick a fight over.
There wasn't a single cloud in the night sky.
Anasole's crew gathered around the hotel, blazing with light.
"Everyone here?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Good. Let's raise some real hell."
Anasole looked up at the hotel towering in all its splendor. From Waikiki Beach you could take the whole of it in at a glance—a symbol of wealth that everyone here wanted and could not have, something they could only stare at while they sucked their thumbs. A few thousand dollars a night, was it?
Looking at it like this, I want to smash the hell out of it.
"Boss, think this is gonna work?"
"You're the one who took the job. What are you scared of?"
The deputy crept up wagging his tail like a dog, and Anasole's irritation spiked.
"Even so……."
"If we're doing it, we do it big. You come all the way here and go soft?"
The client wanted as many rich people dead as possible. The bonus was fat beyond the ordinary, so they had to give it everything they had. There were a few heroes around, and the security was tight—but his outfit wasn't the only one here.
"Hey, Anasole. You were here too?"
Purion came swaggering over with two men in tow and called out to him.
"Tsk. And what are you doing here."
"Came to talk cooperation."
"You snort so much your brain's gone. Cooperation, in this business? You crazy?"
Talking cooperation in a world where stabbing a man in the back was a virtue. Had he plated his face with cocaine instead of brass?
"We'll handle our own. Get lost."
"Come on, just hear me out."
Purion took a few steps closer, and Anasole's men raised their guns.
"Ooh. Loyal bunch. Mine are all junkies, so they don't even look at me."
"You bastard. Your ear holes stuffed with dick?"
Anasole felt for his pistol. Purion's eyes narrowed.
"Wanna go a round? I'm fine with it."
Shhhk.
Purion's skin turned black. It charred, burning black as it climbed.
"You piece of shit. I'll grill meat on that body of yours."
You don't give ground. Give ground and you get eaten. They shouldn't have been at each other's throats right before the big job, but this was the world of villains. Don't like someone, you kill them. You make them kneel. There is no such thing as reason. You live on instinct, emotion, and power.
Light gathered into Anasole's pistol.
One spark from going off.
Just as the two villains' eyes went cold—
A sudden roar yanked both their gazes away.
VROOOOM!!!
"Gyahahaha! We're going in, you bastards! Time to fuck the hotel up the ass!"
"Gyahahahaha!!!"
A pack charged on motorcycles. At their head was Runnerway, the villain whose lower body had turned into a bike.
"Tch. I'll kill you later. Count on it."
"Ah, these crazy bastards, I swear."
Purion shot Anasole a glare and sprinted ahead.
"Boss, we should go too. Hang back like this and we won't get a scrap."
"Fine."
Anasole didn't like it. Even so, it was a chance.
"We go in when I give the signal. Remember. Terrorism's fine, but kill the people first. Killing those lunatics too would be even better."
Going after the hotel guests was all well and good, but fewer mouths at the table would be better still.
"All right, g—!"
KWA-BOOOOM!!!
Anasole watched Runnerway fly into the empty air. His crew went with him, motorcycles and all. Flames shot up into the night sky.
"Everyone, you really mustn't be this loud in the dead of night. It's quite the public nuisance, you know."
What the hell is that.
Anasole broke into a cold sweat.
Out of the black smoke of the blast, a strange figure came walking. He wore a fedora and a cape. A Smiling Mask covered his face, and the suit on him was cut with an aristocrat's elegance. He swept his eyes over the villains just about to charge.
"So much trash. As one upstanding citizen, I find I simply cannot abide it."
"Don't stop, you bastards—shoot! A hero's coming!"
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
At someone's shout, the villains poured out a baptism of bullets.
"Rather a violent greeting, isn't it?"
The figure walked through the gunfire.
Anasole doubted his own eyes. The bullets struck. Holes opened in the suit. He was hit—not one or two rounds, but hundreds. And yet the figure was perfectly fine. Not a drop of blood came out. His whole body was riddled like a wheel of cheese, and still he breathed and spoke as if nothing at all were wrong.
The sight was astonishing, but this was an age that had already accepted superpowers. Strangeness on that level could not stop villains hardened by brawling with heroes.
"Damn it! A hero?!"
"What kind of bullshit hero is this!"
Superpowered villains burst out in front of the figure, each of them unleashing a power of their own.
"I am no hero, however."
"Die!"
One of them crushed down on the figure. A gigantic hand drove a hollow into the ground.
"Don't watch—get in there!"
"We've got the numbers, don't chicken out!"
Rat-tat-tat!
The hotel guards threw up a barricade around the lobby. Bullets stormed. Inside, a hero watched the chaos, eyes alight.
KWA-BOOOOM!
An explosion rolled in from the other side. The villains on the beach, not the front entrance, had started their move.
Anasole felt excitement boiling up through him. This wasn't some small job. It was large-scale terrorism, and word of it would spread in every direction. Just standing in the middle of it filled him with a deep, ugly satisfaction.
"Let's go!"
"Waaaaah!"
Maybe he wasn't the only one who felt it. His men roared, and even the deputy, who had been afraid, was soaked through with thrill.
Yeah! This was the taste of terrorism!
"Charge!"
Waaaaah!!!
"Being left out like this does make one rather sad."
"Huh……?"
At the center of the villains stood the figure they had all taken for dead.
No one had noticed. Not a single person there.
Every eye locked onto the man who had appeared all at once. He had the giant-handed villain gripped in one hand.
"Is this what it means to be unpopular? No one even recognizes me. I'm so sad I could cry."
"You… fucker! Let go of this!!!"
"B-Boss!"
The figure flung him. The villain tumbled across the ground.
"Who the hell are you! I'll kill you!"
"I was waiting for you to say that!"
He took the murderous shout with a smile.
Bang!
Fireworks burst around him.
The sparks gathered into one and dressed the figure of a phantom thief. Behind him, a masked face beneath a fedora was drawn in light.
Ta-da!
With a grand flourish of sound, Phantom Thief Phantom took his bow.
"I look forward to your kindness. Each and every one of you."
The whole place went cold.
The guards who had been shooting. The villains brimming with the urge to kill. The hero who had been about to burst out. All of them looked at the phantom thief and thought the same thing.
……Is he insane?
Someone on a balcony clutched the back of their neck.