Within the halls of Jaku General Hospital, Garaki Kyudai walked through the corridors slowly. Nurses greeted him with small bows; younger doctors straightened when he passed. As the head of the hospital and one of the founders, he carried himself with quiet authority, pausing to ask about patient charts, to inquire about medications being applied, and to offer brief but thoughtful remarks.
Eventually, he reached a room where the patient had a surgery earlier today. He entered it.
Inside, a doctor and a nurse stood beside the patient's bed. All three, including the patient, were staring at the mounted television.
Garaki cleared his throat lightly.
"What has captured everyone's attention?"
The doctor and nurse glanced at him and smiled.
"Dr. Daruma," the doctor said warmly, using his alias, "I see you are hard at work as always."
Garaki's lips curved faintly. "I would not call it hard work. I am simply doing what is expected of me." His eyes shifted briefly to the screen. "Would you care to tell me what has drawn such focus?"
The doctor exhaled.
"Another victim has fallen. The serial killer who has murdered dozens of thugs and criminals over the past week has struck again. This time, he killed a man in his own home. No one can claim he is a new vigilante anymore."
The nurse's face tightened. "They're saying the victim had committed no crimes. Just a poor man trying to live quietly."
Garaki sighed.
"What a terrible era we live in," he said softly. "It saddens me to see people descend into such savagery. Does the man have a family?"
The doctor nodded. "A wife. They were married recently. She is expecting a child."
"The poor woman became a widow overnight," the nurse murmured.
Garaki lowered his gaze as though burdened by the weight of it.
"I hope the heroes and the police find this killer. His actions are unforgivable. As if the people do not suffer enough already." He placed a gentle hand on the bedrail and turned to the patient. "I came to examine you, but it appears everything is stable. Your complexion is much improved from yesterday. You should recover soon."
The patient nodded gratefully.
Garaki offered one final smile before looking at the doctor and nurse. "Continue the good work."
He left the room.
Once the door closed, the nurse sighed. "Dr. Daruma is truly kind-hearted. If more people were like him, the world would be better."
The doctor beside her nodded. "I could not agree more."
Garaki continued to walk through the corridor, his expression returning to neutrality the moment he was alone.
A serial killer.
Dozens of criminals in a week.
He wondered if this was merely another fool attempting to fill the void left by his master and friend, All For One.
The thought had barely settled when a sharp beeping interrupted him.
His hand moved instantly to his coat pocket. He withdrew a small monitoring device. His eyes scanned the screen.
Then it widened.
The Nomu signatures from the secret laboratory beneath the hospital were gone.
Completely gone.
Without hesitation, he turned and moved quickly. He took the secured stairwell. Two minutes later, he stood before the concealed entrance.
The lab door slid open.
The room was exactly as he had left it. Rows of containment tubes lined the chamber, filled with glowing fluid. Each Nomu floated motionless inside.
Garaki stepped forward slowly.
They were there.
All of them.
He looked down at the device again.
No readings.
"No… no…" he muttered. "Why are they not showing? Did all sensors fail simultaneously? That is statistically improbable."
His fingers trembled faintly as he adjusted the monitor.
A voice drifted from behind him.
"They are all dead."
Garaki flinched violently, his heart lurching in his chest. He spun around.
A tall figure stood several meters away.
White hair fell past his shoulders. His skin was unnaturally pale. And his eyes were cold, unblinking.
Garaki froze.
"How did you come here? Who…"
He stopped.
Recognition struck like lightning.
"It is you!!"
Hatred thickened every syllable.
Junsei regarded him without visible emotion.
"If you mean the one who killed your master," he said evenly, "then yes."
Garaki's breathing sharpened. "You altered your appearance to infiltrate this place? How did you discover it?"
"Through him," Junsei replied. "I know everything you did under his orders. Including the creation of the Nomu."
Garaki took a step back. Fear and fury warred across his face.
"You came here to kill me, didn't you?"
"Yes," Junsei answered. "I intended to."
"But looking at you now…" Junsei continued, his gaze sweeping over the aging doctor, "there is no life in you. You have not taken life with your own hands."
Garaki's jaw tightened. "What do you mean?"
"I removed the life from all the Nomu," Junsei said calmly. "I will not hold you accountable for what you created under All For One's command. Those actions belong to him."
Garaki's eyes flickered to the tubes.
"How?" he demanded. "How could you kill them all?"
"It does not concern you," Junsei replied.
He stepped closer.
"If you create another Nomu," Junsei said, his voice steady and without emphasis, "I will return. And I will kill you."
Garaki swallowed.
"I do not understand you, what is your goal?" he asked.
"You do not need to understand that. All you need to know," he answered, "is that if you create them again, I will come after you and I will kill you."
Garaki looked at the containment tubes, they stood intact. But inside them, every Nomu was nothing more than an empty shell. He couldn't understand how he could do that without touching them.
Garaki's eyes moved back to the young man before him, disbelief tightening the lines of his aged face.
He hesitated, then spoke.
"What are you thinking? If you want the nomus gone, why not just kill me? Why give me a chance to survive?"
Junsei regarded him without hostility.
"You did not steal life with your own hands and the nomus were for All For One," Junsei said evenly. "So I will not kill you because of your association with All For One. But if you give me another reason, if you create Nomu out of your own desire, if you choose it yourself, I will kill you."
Garaki's hands curled into fists at his sides, knuckles whitening.
"Why?" he demanded. "You killed my master! Why this sudden mercy?"
Junsei's gaze did not waver.
"Because that is something a human would have done," he replied. "Something your master would have done. I refuse to act like you humans. I am better."
The words were calm. That composure fractured something inside the old doctor.
"Shut up!" Garaki screamed, his voice echoing sharply off steel and glass. "All For One was a god among men! What could someone like you possibly understand?!"
His vision blurred. Tears spilled freely down his cheeks, unrestrained by dignity or pride.
Junsei watched him without contempt.
"I have learned everything he knew," Junsei said. "If a god is simply the most human among men, then yes, he was a god."
The statement landed heavier than an insult.
Garaki's breath hitched. "You… you took his memories? All of it?"
Garaki didn't take Junsei's words earlier to heart and had no time to bother understanding the implications, but now hearing it out again, he understood what it meant.
"Yes."
Garaki's shoulders trembled.
"You killed him and stole his memories," he whispered hoarsely. "You are a monster."
Junsei did not respond. He turned and began walking toward the exit.
"Wait!" Garaki shouted suddenly.
Junsei paused but did not fully turn.
"If you possess his memories," Garaki said urgently, desperation sharpening his tone, "then you understand the Quirk Singularity."
Junsei looked back at him.
Garaki's eyes burned through his tears. "Do you believe you are the Quirk Singularity?"
Junsei's expression did not change.
"I am not… I am not human and I am quirkless."
He turned again and walked away.
The laboratory doors slid shut behind him.
Garaki stood motionless for several seconds, his breathing uneven. Then his expression hardened.
"Lies," he muttered.
An obvious lie.
He turned slowly toward the rows of tubes.
The nomus floated exactly as before.
But they were corpses.
Garaki's mind raced.
How had he controlled them that night? How had he killed them without physical contact? What is his quirk?
His fists tightened once more, though now with calculation rather than grief.
Even if his master had gone, even without creating new nomus, he will continue his research and reach the Quirk Singularity, one way or another.
"I will complete your work," he whispered toward the silent laboratory. "I will bring about the Quirk Singularity."
His grief reshaped itself into resolve.
"I will avenge you," he said quietly, eyes hardening. "And I will create a being that stands at the summit of this world just as you wished."
The silent tubes were as if the remnants of failed creations were bearing witness to a vow that would drag the world toward catastrophe.