Hostage, Severed Arm, the Hidden Sixth Villain

Police cars all around continued to wail, and the survivors from the damaged blocks nearby had been rescued and gathered together.

After Uraraka Shige told the two "heroes" exactly where to find the two "villains" who had been holed up in the trap zone, the heroes used a tortoise-shell breach tactic to capture them with ease. The group had come over to the police cars, where the heroes were being commended by the police, while Uraraka Shige was being sternly scolded.

Although Uraraka Shige was thoroughly unhappy about that, the matter had at least come to an end...

Or so it should have.

But...

...How did it come to this?

Uraraka Shige had that thought as a middle-aged man who looked very composed seized him by the back of the neck and lifted him, leaving him dangling in the air.

Not long ago, the middle-aged man had been standing alongside him. But unlike him, the man had been receiving praise for using his Quirk to absorb and treat the blast injuries of a large number of survivors, successfully saving many lives.

Now, however, he had become a tense, panicked man holding a small child hostage to threaten the police and the "heroes."

"Let them go!"

The middle-aged man's other hand gripped his small, slender left arm tightly. Uraraka Shige could clearly feel the tremendous force pressing down on it. At the very least, as young as he was, he had nowhere near enough strength to struggle free of the man's grasp.

And although his Quirk was excellent, he was ultimately too young to have developed its potential at all. As a result, he did not have even one suitable, practical means of fighting an enemy.

Of course, that did not mean Uraraka Shige himself was holding back his excellent Quirk. In fact, among his peers in this world, there was probably no one who had done a better job of exploring and mastering their Quirk. He was simply too young, and his physical limitations meant that his Quirk had not yet grown at all.

He could hardly develop his Quirk in a destructive way at the cost of his own potential. That would have been far too foolish and unwise.

In any case, Uraraka Shige could not help feeling a trace of regret.

Maybe I shouldn't have come today...

He had gone to so much trouble and, with a stroke of luck, finally managed to help the "heroes" deal with this "villain group." Yet not only had he received no praise or commendation, he had instead been thoroughly scolded by the police. Naturally, that was because Uraraka Shige had broken the law prohibiting anyone who was not a professional "hero" from using a Quirk illegally. He had only gotten away with a scolding because of his young age.

After all, he did not have someone like All Might looking out for him. Not even his classmates, teachers, or parents knew what he had done, because he had skipped school to come here.

And if that had been all, he would only have felt a little aggrieved and indignant, and the feeling would have vanished in no time. What she truly regretted was the fact that he was now being held captive by this middle-aged man.

That meant his life, which had yet to begin, was now under an extremely grave threat. If the man holding him hostage was sufficiently deranged, he might not even live to see the sunshine a second later. How could he not regret it?

He had such an excellent Quirk in this life, such a wonderful family, and the world he had come to was so full of color...

But there was no point dwelling on it now. Uraraka Shige could only pray that Toshinori Yagi, the man regarded as the standard for "heroes" in this world—no, All Might!-would learn of the danger he was in and appear in time to save him, an innocent young victim.

Or perhaps, against all odds, the middle-aged man holding him hostage was close to one of the five "villains," and had only taken him hostage in a moment of hotheaded panic brought on by worry, solely to threaten the police... though even he thought that was practically impossible.

"Ah! Right, you still don't know who I am, or what my Quirk is, do you?"

The middle-aged man holding him hostage was undoubtedly in an extreme panic. Evidently, even he had not expected to come forward, take Uraraka Shige hostage, and end up in a standoff with the police. Uraraka Shige could tell as much from how clearly he felt the man's heart pounding in his chest.

But Uraraka Shige paid no attention to that, nor did he intend to exploit the man's nerves, taut as a bowstring, to seek a way or an opportunity to escape.

Because the moment the man said those words, Uraraka Shige's brain began frantically sending him signals of extreme danger. He could not calm down enough to think, and as a result, he did not even notice the palm of the hand gripping his left arm growing hotter and hotter.

"Boom!!!"

A violent explosion seemed to go off right against his body. A tremendous force then struck his left arm, making Uraraka Shige's internal organs ache and leaving his head spinning.

"What did you do?!"

"Let that child go!"

Voices like these rang out one after another, drawing Uraraka Shige's attention.

But when Uraraka Shige looked at the police officers crying out in alarm, he found that many of them were staring fixedly toward his left arm.

So Uraraka Shige instinctively followed their gazes, straining to look down at his left arm...

But all he saw was empty space, the middle-aged man's stomach, and a hand slowly drawing back.

"Huh? Eh?"

Uraraka Shige made a sound that was full of confusion yet somehow rather cute.

At the same time, he instinctively tried to move his left hand. But he felt nothing, so he asked aloud without thinking.

"Huh? Where's my hand?"

No one answered his question. Instead, the middle-aged man continued what he had been saying.

"I'm the leader of that 'villain group'! My Quirk lets me absorb and store damage caused by explosions, then release it! Its actual power depends on how much damage I've absorbed and stored!"

"In other words, the child in my hands isn't my only hostage. Everyone here is my hostage! So hurry up and release my five subordinates!"

Only then did Uraraka Shige begin to notice the waves of pain coming from his left arm, growing more intense by the moment.

Only then did he also realize that his left arm had been blasted off with a Quirk by the leader of the "villain group," who had been hiding among the crowd all this time. The violent explosion he had heard earlier had only been an illusion brought on by his severe injury.

"Ah... so that's what happened!"

With a sudden feeling of understanding, Uraraka Shige sank into unconsciousness.