"Hmph! Die!"
With a furious roar, Steel Boy finally raised the left hand he hadn't used until now.
There was a reason he usually fought with only one arm. Once his Quirk steelified his body, his power skyrocketed—but so did his weight. If he committed his whole body to an attack, his balance became much harder to control. Against most opponents, that tradeoff wasn't worth it.
But right now, he had no choice.
His right fist was still locked inside Shigaraki Tomura's grip.
What made it even more maddening was the sheer absurdity of it.
The size difference between them was overwhelming. Steel Boy towered over the blue-haired teenager like an armored truck parked in front of a schoolkid. By all logic, he should have been able to rip his arm free with brute force alone.
And yet—
He couldn't.
No matter how hard he pulled, twisted, or strained, his right arm refused to come loose. It was as if that hand no longer belonged to him—as if it had grown straight out of Shigaraki's body instead.
Unable to free himself, he could only resort to his less favored left hand.
Still, in his mind, it didn't matter.
Right hand. Left hand. Same difference.
This was just some scrawny brat.
No matter how strange the situation was, there was no way he could lose to a kid like this.
He had broken through encirclements by Pro Heroes and escaped alive more than once. People with licenses, training, sidekicks, support gear, backup—he'd gotten away from all of them. So how could he possibly fall to some blue-haired punk who hadn't even grown up yet?
With that thought burning in his head, Steel Boy swung.
His left fist—huge as a cast-iron pot—tore through the air with a savage gust, driving straight toward Shigaraki's head.
He was going to crush this annoying little pest in a single blow.
"Want to kill me?" Shigaraki let out a low, mocking laugh as the steel fist rushed toward him. "With you?"
His expression didn't change at all.
No panic.
No tension.
No attempt to dodge at the last second.
He looked almost bored.
Then a cold sneer tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Try again in your next life."
In Shigaraki's eyes, Steel Boy's desperate counterattack was less a threat and more a final act of self-destruction.
Close combat?
That was the one place he had never lost.
And just as he expected—
The moment he activated Decay, Steel Boy was finished.
Finished in every sense of the word.
…
A second later, the giant body hit the ground with a heavy crash.
Steel Boy—real name Shota Hagane—lay sprawled across the cold street, his face still frozen in stunned disbelief.
He didn't understand.
He truly didn't understand.
How had he lost?
A moment ago, he had still been standing. He'd swung his fist, convinced he was about to smash that smug brat flat.
Then, just as Shigaraki curled his lip in that mocking smile, a sharp, violent pain suddenly shot through his right arm and both legs.
It felt like his nerves had been stabbed from the inside.
His knees buckled instantly.
His body lost all support.
And before he could even process what was happening, he had pitched forward and slammed face-first into the asphalt.
After that—
His limbs stopped obeying him.
Not weakened.
Not numb.
They simply no longer felt like his own.
He tried to push himself up.
Nothing.
Tried to clench his fist.
Nothing.
It was as if his arms and legs had been cut loose from his will and left behind as useless dead weight.
Panic rose in his chest.
What the hell had that brat done to him?
"Tap… tap… tap…"
Soft footsteps approached from behind.
Neither hurried nor heavy.
Calm.
Measured.
Each step landed with an irritating sense of leisure, as if the person walking had already decided everything was over.
Shigaraki stopped in front of him.
From the ground, Steel Boy had to crane his neck upward just to meet his gaze.
The blue-haired teenager looked down at him with the same cold indifference one might use for a broken appliance tossed out by the roadside.
The amused smile from earlier had faded.
What remained was something much colder.
Shigaraki lowered his eyes to the fallen villain and asked flatly, "Talk."
His voice wasn't loud.
It didn't need to be.
"Why were you trying to kill her?"
Steel Boy's face twisted.
Even though he couldn't stand, even though he was lying there like a wreck with half his body no longer working, his mouth remained as stubborn as ever.
"Hah?" he spat. "Who the hell do you think you are?"
His voice was hoarse with pain, but the defiance in it didn't weaken.
"Why should I tell you anything?"
To him, losing the fight and losing everything were two different matters.
Sure, he'd been beaten.
But so what?
What could this brat really do to him?
At worst, he'd be handed over to the authorities and thrown in prison.
That was all.
And in this society, prison wasn't the end.
Heroes weren't allowed to kill.
Courts almost never handed out death sentences.
That ridiculous thing called "human rights" protected even people like him.
It was laughable, really.
But it was also useful.
As long as those laws existed, criminals like him could keep killing, get caught, and still live.
If not for the legal protections wrapped around villains and murderers, he never would have dared act this recklessly in the first place.
He knew the rules.
He knew exactly where the line was.
And he knew heroes had their hands tied.
That knowledge was what gave him the confidence to act without fear.
So why should he cooperate with someone trying to throw him in jail?
Not causing more trouble was already generous enough.
Help him?
Dream on.
With visible effort, Steel Boy lifted his head and forced a cold smile onto his face.
"Judging by your strength… and the fact that you saved someone…" He coughed once, then sneered. "You're a Pro Hero, right?"
Shigaraki said nothing.
Steel Boy took that silence as confirmation and gave a short, ugly laugh.
"Then you should know the rules better than anyone. Heroes can't force people to do what they don't want to do. And they definitely can't kill."
His eyes gleamed with ugly satisfaction.
"So stop wasting your time. You're not getting anything out of me."
He paused, breathing heavily through clenched teeth.
"Go on. Do the usual heroic routine. Arrest me. Hand me over. Send me to prison."
He even sounded a little smug saying it.
For all his current misery, the thought still comforted him: no matter what happened here, he would live.
That was the beauty of the system.
Pathetic.
But useful.
The only thing he regretted was that he hadn't managed to kill a few more people before getting put down. Still, the ones he hated most had already died by his hands, so it wasn't a total loss.
As long as he survived, there would always be another chance.
"Is that so?"
Shigaraki's voice came out mild—almost curious.
Then he smiled.
It was a small smile.
Polite, even.
The kind of smile that would have looked harmless on someone else.
On his face, it felt wrong.
Steel Boy's pupils contracted instinctively.
Before he could think, before he could speak, Shigaraki lifted one foot—
And stomped down hard on Steel Boy's right wrist.
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