Time seemed to freeze in that dimly lit alley. The air, which had been filled with casual chatter and the hustle and bustle of the city, now felt cold and heavy. The man in the plague doctor mask, whom we would later come to know as Overhaul, stood there, his calm presence feeling far more threatening than any villain's shout. He was the personification of a deadly silence.
The little girl named Eri trembled violently, her grip on Midoriya's pants so tight her knuckles turned white. She looked at Overhaul not with the fear of a child for an angry adult, but with the pure terror of prey face-to-face with its predator.
"My apologies for my daughter," Overhaul said again, his calm, emotionless voice sounding so out of place. "She often plays around and causes trouble. Come, Eri. It's time to go home."
He held out his white-gloved hand. Eri flinched back, hiding her face behind Midoriya's leg. The little girl's reaction was a confession of guilt clearer than any words.
At my side, Mirio Togata, who had been smiling broadly moments before, now wore a serious expression. As a third-year student and a top hero candidate, he instantly sensed that something was very wrong with this situation. "Wait a moment," he said, his usually cheerful voice now firm. "Your daughter looks very frightened. Are you sure everything is alright?"
Overhaul turned toward Mirio, his cold eyes staring from behind his mask. "Children are often difficult to understand. She's just having a tantrum. This is a family matter. I hope you, as hero candidates, can respect our privacy."
His words were a polite yet impenetrable wall. He used social norms as his weapon, placing us in an awkward position. If we interfered further, we could be accused of meddling in a family affair.
But Midoriya, with his heart too big and his unstoppable heroic spirit, couldn't just let it go. "But... but she's trembling!" he said, his voice shaking with a mixture of anger and pity. "She doesn't look like she's having a tantrum! She looks like she's in pain!"
As Midoriya spoke, I felt the strangest and most violent reaction from Incursio I had ever experienced. It wasn't a wary heartbeat or the echo of another soul. It was a total rejection. My entire being, connected to the primal dragon power that was the embodiment of evolution and life, felt disgusted and horrified by Overhaul's presence. It felt like a positive pole meeting a positive pole, a fundamental repulsion at a cellular level. I felt a piercing cold, not the cold of Todoroki's ice, but the cold of nothingness, the cold of a vacuum where life could not exist.
'This man's power...' I thought, my hand unconsciously clutching my chest. 'It feels like... a negation. An antithesis to all that is.' My instincts, amplified by the dragon within me, screamed that this man before me was a different threat from All For One. All For One was a hungry void, absorbing all power. This man... he was a power that erased.
Overhaul let out a long sigh, a sound deliberately made to sound weary. "It seems you won't be leaving just yet." He looked at Midoriya. "What will you do, hero? Take her away? Start a fight in the middle of this crowded street? Cause a panic? Is that what U.A. teaches?"
He had cleverly turned the situation around, making us look like the aggressors. He knew we couldn't act rashly.
It was then that Overhaul did something that made my blood run cold. He took off one of his gloves. With a slow, deliberate motion, he touched the brick wall beside him. Instantly, the wall exploded inward, then quickly reassembled itself back to its original form in the blink of an eye. A terrifying demonstration of power, performed with absolute composure.
"I'm tired of this game," he said, his tone now losing all its politeness, replaced by a cold threat. "Hand over the child, or I will disassemble all of you, molecule by molecule, right here and now."
Eri, who saw the demonstration, began to sob silently. She released her grip on Midoriya and shakily walked toward Overhaul. "I... I'll go," she whispered. "Please... don't hurt them."
Midoriya looked devastated. He had failed. He couldn't save her.
As Overhaul was about to take Eri's hand, I stepped forward, placing myself slightly between them. I said nothing. I just stared at him.
Overhaul paused. His cold eyes looked at me, and for a moment, I saw something there. Not recognition, not curiosity. But something else. Something that almost resembled... a scientist's interest in an unusual specimen. As if he could sense something different in me, just as I could sense something wrong from him.
"And you?" he asked quietly. "You don't radiate the same 'sickness' as your friends. You are... something else."
Before I could respond, Mirio quickly pulled me back. "Don't provoke him, Tatsumi-kun!" he whispered urgently.
Overhaul took Eri's hand, and they turned to leave. But before he disappeared into the alley, he looked back, his eyes fixed directly on me. "We'll meet again, anomaly," he said. With that, they vanished into the darkness.
The three of us stood there in a heavy silence, the echo of the encounter still hanging in the air. Midoriya fell to his knees, punching the pavement with his fist in frustration and helplessness. Mirio tried to comfort him, but he himself looked deeply shaken.
I myself could only stare into the dark alley where they had disappeared. I felt the residual chill of Overhaul's Quirk, and I knew that this was not the end. This was the beginning of something far worse.
That night, I couldn't sleep. I sat on the dorm balcony, letting the cold night wind hit my face. The encounter with Overhaul had left a deep mark. Incursio's reaction to him was something I had never felt before. It wasn't just about power. It was about existence itself.
I closed my eyes and tried to meditate, to understand that reaction. I reached inward, toward my dragon's heartbeat. And for the first time, I got a clear response. Not a vision or a memory echo. But a pure feeling. An emotion so strong it almost made me suffocate.
Hatred.
The dragon within me, Tyrant, hated Overhaul's Quirk with an absolute, primal hatred. Because Overhaul's Quirk was the antithesis of its existence. Incursio was the pinnacle of life's evolution, the ability to adapt and become stronger. Overhaul... he was the power that deconstructs, that erases, that returns everything to nothingness. They were two fundamental forces that could not coexist in the same universe.
I realized that my future fight against Overhaul wouldn't just be a hero versus villain fight. It would be a much more personal battle. A battle between evolution and deconstruction. Between life and nothingness.
The next day, Midoriya and I were summoned by Sir Nighteye. The meeting was awkward and tense. Sir Nighteye, with his sharp, analytical gaze, was clearly not impressed with us.
"I have heard about your encounter with Chisaki," he said in a cold tone. "Your actions were reckless and nearly jeopardized our entire investigation." He looked at Midoriya. "You let your emotions get the better of you. A hero must be able to make difficult decisions, even if it means letting one victim go to save many more."
He then looked at me. "And you... I don't know what you were doing. But you drew unwanted attention. Chisaki now knows about you. You have become an unknown variable in my game."
I just looked back at him. "With all due respect, Sir," I said calmly. "This is no longer your game. This concerns a child's life."
The tension in the room could be cut with a knife. But that meeting was the starting point of our involvement in the Shie Hassaikai investigation. We were introduced to the team of pro heroes that had been formed, including Ryukyu, Fat Gum, and several other heroes. We also met the rest of the Big Three, Tamaki Amajiki, and some of our classmates who were also doing their Work-Studies at the involved agencies, like Kirishima and Uraraka.
We were all gathered in a large meeting room. On the screen, Kai Chisaki's face appeared, along with all the information the heroes had gathered. They explained about the Quirk-destroying bullets, about their connection to Eri's blood, and about the Hassaikai's plan to overhaul the underworld.
As I sat there, listening to the briefing, I felt a cold determination form within me. This was no longer just about saving a little girl. This was about stopping a disease before it spread. And I knew, somehow, that fate had placed me here, at this moment, to face the one enemy that the dragon within me truly hated. This fight would be the true test of my ability to control Incursio, and to see if I could be the hero this world needed, or if I would be consumed by my own dragon's hatred.