Winds of Destiny: Falling ~ {Hawks x OC}

Chapter Twenty: Close Encounters

"Next stop, Hosu City. I repeat: next stop, Hosu City."

Misaki looked up from the report she'd been reading on the HN at the sound of the announcement over the train's intercom. She was dressed in casual clothes—a pair of comfortable black leggings and a loose-fitting white tank top, covered by a light wash jean jacket with the sleeves rolled a quarter of the way up her arms. Her long, dark hair was pulled back into a loose, high ponytail and a pair of aviator sunglasses sat perched atop her head. Two midsize, gold hoop earrings dangled from her pierced ears and her feet were adorned in a pair of folded over black combat boots.

She clicked the button on the side of her phone to put it to sleep before sliding it into the front pocket of her bag. Standing from her seat, she slipped the black and gold crossbody backpack over her shoulder and prepared to exit the train, stepping out onto the platform as the doors slid open before glancing up at the map showing each of the terminal exits. Noting the one she was looking for, she turned and headed for the northwest exit.

People bustled around the busy train terminal in the mid-Sunday morning errand rush. She sidestepped a police officer who suddenly rushed past her, blowing a whistle while he chased after a guy in a hoodie who was carrying a purse that clearly did not belong to him. She watched as the thief was suddenly clotheslined by a hero in a Native American looking costume. The people around the terminal stopped to applaud the hero, who grinned and sheepishly rubbed the back of his head as the police officer arrested the purse snatcher on the ground.

Well, if that wasn't a prime example of the double standard of law enforcement in society, she wasn't sure what was.

Turning away from the scene, Misaki slid her sunglasses down over her eyes and fished her phone back out of her bag to open her GPS app. It hadn't taken her very long to notice a pattern while she'd been looking through the files of Stain's past crime scenes. He'd appear in a city like a blood soaked, avenging demon, laying waste to any hero that crossed his path before disappearing a few days later, leaving only a trail of bloodshed and terror in his wake. The swiftness of his spree killings was what had been giving the police such a hard time of tracking him down. It had been almost five days since he'd appeared in Hosu City and seriously injured the hero Ingenium. So far, the surviving hero had been the only victim.

It didn't fit the pattern.

There hadn't been any reports from any law enforcement or hero agencies about any sightings of the villain, either in or around Hosu, in the last five days. Misaki could only think of three possible explanations for his sudden silence. Option one, he'd had a sudden change of heart, deciding that being a hero killer wasn't the legacy he'd really wanted for himself and electing instead to change his ways and become an upstanding member of society.

Yeah, not likely.

Option two, he'd somehow been killed in action. That explanation seemed just as unlikely, as any other villains were more apt to try and assist him than to try and off him; and any hero or police officer who may have done the deed would have reported it. It was also possible that his battle with Ingenium had left him injured to the point of needing time to heal before continuing his spree. According to the police statement she'd read from the hospitalized hero though, the attack had been too swift for the villain to have sustained any such injuries, which left her with only one other possible explanation.

He'd been interrupted by something; or someone.

Looking into Stain's background hadn't given her any reason to believe that he had any ties to the League of Villains. His mantra that All Might was the only true hero in a society saturated with fakes didn't mesh with the League of Villains' past attempts to attack and kill the upstanding Symbol of Peace. The League's actions went against everything that the Hero Killer stood for. And while she didn't condone his use of violence, she couldn't just ignore his complete and utter devotion to his ideology either. In her opinion, he was more likely to try to kill them than to work with them.