Face the Fear
Blanca, running ahead and clearing the path for us, was in absolutely no state to be called all right.
Her eyes were glazed over, making it impossible to tell what she was looking at, and her hands were smeared with blood.
What’s more, though she hadn’t noticed it herself, even the way she ran was alarmingly unsteady. It looked like one shove would send her crumpling to the ground.
And yet she kept running. Even after being knocked flat by her doppelgänger’s fist, she would quickly force herself back into form and open the way for us again.
And there was nothing I could do to help her.
Nothing I could do for her, even though she was dragging her injured body forward just to protect us.
In frustration, I hurled ice and fired lightning.
But no matter how wildly I unleashed my powers at the doppelgängers, sometimes they hit and sometimes they didn’t.
And even when they did land, I couldn’t make the attacks stop once they were aimed at Blanca, and the doppelgängers I struck would vanish almost immediately, so it wasn’t as if I was helping her at all.
It was a completely pointless struggle. I had never felt so powerless.
I felt disgusted with myself. This was no different from that day, back then.
Everyone else was fighting with everything they had, and I was the only one doing nothing.
I was frustrated. I was sick with self-loathing. I was angry. I knew I had to keep my emotions in check, but my heart was still lurching wildly in my chest.
This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.
It had been so long since I’d been pushed this far—since that day—that my heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vice.
“Just a little farther... we only need to go... a bit more...”
“Blanca!”
In the end, she couldn’t hold on any longer and collapsed. Yeonhwa, telling me she was fine and that I should help Blanca instead, sent me to her side.
“Blanca needs help more than I do... go!”
“Sorry, Yeonhwa!”
Yeonhwa wasn’t in good shape either. But Blanca really did need help more urgently than she did.
If I had to ask what the kinder thing was to do, helping Blanca was the kinder thing.
“Blanca, can you hear me?! Blanca!!”
After supporting her, I shook her lightly, checking to see if she still had any awareness left.
But Blanca didn’t answer at all. Her eyes were still unfocused, almost shut.
Her chest was rising and falling, so thankfully she was still breathing properly, but she didn’t seem likely to wake up anytime soon.
She had done all this for us, and I...
“…Changwon!! Drop the barrier!! I’ve got Blanca!!”
I shouted at the top of my lungs to Changwon, who was maintaining the barrier. In response, part of the wall came down, and the homeroom teacher stepped out along with Aghea and a few more students.
Unlike me, they were all people who could actually attack the doppelgängers properly.
But they were too slow. The doppelgängers were swarming faster than they could be dealt with.
At this rate, not only would they fail to save us, they’d be in danger themselves. On top of that, Yeonhwa, who was holding back the Suicides, seemed to be reaching her limit too.
Blanca was barely hanging on against my side, and the doppelgängers were advancing with feral grins on their faces as they watched us.
Blanca was in danger.
I had to do something.
Lightning, wind, and ice weren’t working. Which meant there was only one thing left to bring out.
No matter how scared I was, no matter how unprepared I was. No matter what wounds I carried.
Right now, I had to manifest fire.
My heartbeat was so loud it felt like my eardrums might burst. The sky and ground seemed to be shaking. I was scared. What if it happened again, and everyone burned to death just like last time?
What if I couldn’t control it? What if I made a mistake?
Every horrible future imaginable flashed before my eyes. I was so afraid that the fire wouldn’t come out right. I was terrified. I was supposed to be angry, and yet even now, in the middle of all this, I was still afraid.
“And you think you can become a hero like this...?”
But losing Blanca was even worse. And I hated the thought of Yeonhwa getting hurt.
So I turned even that fear into self-loathing, into rage.
The only thing I needed to carve into my chest was anger. Nothing else. Just like Blanca said, this was no time to hesitate.
I couldn’t sit around expecting a hero to arrive like last time. This was the moment I had to become one myself.
I pictured a flame so vivid, so clear it almost hurt to look at it. A hellfire that would burn even the vague, unreal illusion of something that might or might not exist.
A punishment worthy of the wicked.
Burning through my mana, I unleashed a violent blaze at the doppelgängers.
At the same time, I adjusted it with painstaking precision so it would burn only the illusions.
“It’s not wor— huh?”
The doppelgängers seemed to mock me by tapping at their own bodies, but when they finally looked down and saw themselves blackening and charring, they fell silent and disappeared.
The flames incinerated every illusion around us, including the ones encircling those struggling to protect us, as well as the ones surrounding the people fighting beside them.
For a brief moment, the path toward the bunker opened.
“…Jinhyun.”
Just as I confirmed the way was open, I felt a chill so deep it seemed to freeze my body solid. Maybe I’d used too much mana. Or maybe the fear I’d been forcing myself to ignore had finally caught up with me.
I couldn’t move. It was as if I’d turned to ice, unable to so much as twitch.
But I had to move.
I couldn’t pull off something like that again.
Clenching my teeth, I forced my body to move and shouted to Yeonhwa.
“Later, Yeonhwa! Right now, keep moving!”
I told her I’d explain everything later—that I’d explain the fire she’d just seen—and begged her to keep going.
Yeonhwa, too, snapped to her senses when she saw the doppelgängers and Suicides beginning to close in again, and together we helped Blanca and ran for the bunker.
“What on earth was that just now?! Did student Yeonhwa awaken or something?!”
The homeroom teacher hurriedly got us inside the bunker, then asked what that flame had been.
“I-it wasn’t me!”
“Then student Jinhyun...? Why... no, whatever that was, it was an incredible strike!”
“Th-thank you...”
Once we got Blanca onto a makeshift cot, fear and exhaustion came crashing over me at once.
Maybe this was the price for pushing myself too far, finally collected all at once. I couldn’t seem to gather my senses at all.
The homeroom teacher and Yeonhwa were asking if I was all right, but I didn’t have the strength left to answer, and I collapsed right there.
— — — —
That evening, after the attack.
I stood guard outside the operating room Blanca had been taken into and stared at the report, not even sure if I was awake or half-asleep.
Civilian deaths: 7. Cause of death: crush injuries and massive blood loss from trauma.
Thanks to a student with healing abilities who devoted herself on-site, the severely injured had been reduced to wounds that should heal completely after about two weeks of rest.
Suicide faction deaths: estimated at over 300. Since exact identification was impossible, this remains only an estimate and should not be taken as absolute.
The Suicides in critical condition will undergo treatment before being handed over to the judgment of the law.
Executioners deaths: 0.
One had suffered a fatal wound, but escaped by using his ability. The man with the steel body and the illusionist also escaped together.
Two arrests. An ability user who manipulates vibrations, and an ability user who controls ice.
They will be interrogated by Heros City Police and then handed over to the judgment of the law.
That was the extent of what the report said.
But there were other things it didn’t say. The state of the students.
No deaths. Thirteen minor injuries. One serious injury.
For facing villains the likes of which should only show up in a second-year arc, it was nothing short of miraculous...
But that didn’t bring much comfort.
Because the one serious injury had been Blanca.
That was why I couldn’t feel at ease. The image of her smiling at me and saying she believed in me clashed with the way she’d looked when everything was finally over.
I wasn’t worried she might not wake up.
Her bones were broken, and she’d even suffered internal bleeding, but...
When I asked Yustitia, she said Heros Corporation had already brought in regenerative medicine and even one of the renowned healing ability users to treat her.
With that kind of lineup, if they’d just gotten to her in time, they could probably have saved someone split cleanly into upper and lower halves, head included.
So if I were to ask why I still couldn’t relax...
Maybe it was because I couldn’t help doubting the girl who’d thrown herself in harm’s way for someone else.
I had so many questions for her.
How did she know Wang Tai-ryun’s ability? Why did she throw herself in like that? What the hell had happened to her in the past?
I needed to find out. Rationally, that was the right thing to do.
But whether it was the right thing emotionally, I couldn’t say.
“Minho, why don’t you get some rest too?”
“I’m fine. Really.”
“I-I hope Blanca’s all right...”
“Me too. I’m worried about Blanca.”
“She’ll be all right... she has to be. She’s my rival, after all...”
“She’ll be fine. She’s not that weak a woman.”
“R-right, Yamaguchi-kun...?”
Everyone who had any sort of connection to her kept waiting for her to come out safely, murmuring reassurance to one another.
Only Jinhyun stood there in silence, staring at the floor.
She has to be all right.
The deeper the night grew, the deeper my desperate hope sank with it.
— — — —
“That’s right, this is how it should’ve been from the beginning. Isn’t it a beautiful sight?”
In a warehouse on the outskirts, a man buried beneath a heap of old clothes was smirking as he looked through news articles.
Most of them were about the Suicides.
An unknown force that attacked Heros Academy twice and still hadn’t been rooted out. The Suicides.
Who are the Suicides? Who is their leader? What is their goal?
Every single title was exactly the sort of thing that pleased the man to no end.
“It’s good that it’s good, but... hm. Maybe because I’ve focused too much on the visual shock factor, people keep saying they’re not all that impressive in terms of raw force...”
One moment the man was grinning like a madman, and the next he wiped the smile from his face as though changing masks, slowly reading through the evaluations of the Suicides.
“Maybe next time I should make them a little stronger before I send them out.”
The man began kneading a fleshy mass as he sketched out the future on his canvas.
He was driven by nothing more than pure malice—the desire to make this next one a little more vicious, a little more solid.